Looking to hire Thai nurse as Live-In Caregiver

[GuyintheChair]

Hello,

I am a 29 year old paraplegic, and I'm looking to hire a live-in caregiver from Thailand to help me with things around the house. I have been doing everything myself for 6 years and it's just become too much for me. The person I would like to hire has been working as a nurse in Thailand for 4 years, she is 25 years old. I have talked to her about how much I can afford to pay her and she we are both happy with 500$ a month. This may seem very low, but I don't need that much help, and it's as much money as she is currently making in Thailand but here she would work much less hours and I would not be charging her room and board or any other expenses so it's a pretty good deal for her to be able to save money. I have been looking over the canadian immigration website for a while and to me it seems like she fits all of the criteria they require for someone to be a live-in caregiver, however her english is not so good and I have offered to pay for her to go to english school in Thailand to get better at it. My question is... Do I stand any chance of getting approved to bring her here as a live-in caregiver if I can only pay her 500$ a month ? and should I hire someone to help me with the labour market opinion or is it something I can handle doing on my own ? I have seen websites that charge 1000$ for help doing the LMO, but I am no stranger to paperwork over the years and if it's not too crazy I would rather save the money and do it myself, but I really don't want to screw this up so if it's a better idea to pay someone then so be it. I just don't know how good of a case I have to bring in someone as my live-in caregiver, although my health situation is not going to change and I really could use someone to help me with house duties, helping take care of my 3 dogs, and just having someone here in case I fall out of my chair or injure myself trying to take a shower or getting into bed. I am so happy to have found this site, I hope there is someone that can help me as I have read over lots of caregiver posts here and the people on this site have a lot of knowledge about canada immigration and I appreciate any advice or help anyone can give me. Thanks !

-The Guy in the Chair

 

[GuyintheChair]

One thing I forgot to mention is that I have plenty of room to accommodate the live-in caregiver as she would have the 2 bedrooms upstairs in my house to herself. I have no lift or elevator to get myself upstairs so the entire second floor would be her private area. If there is any other relevant info that I am forgetting please let me know and I will post it. Thanks !

 

[job_seeker]

Hi,

You would need to offer at least the minimum wage prevailing in your province. You have to advertise the position at the national job bank and a major daily or website. You must show proof that you tried to recruit a Canadian citizen or PR. Please read on:

http://www.rhdcc-hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/workplaceskills/foreign_workers/index.shtml

Hello,

I am a 29 year old paraplegic, and I'm looking to hire a live-in caregiver from Thailand to help me with things around the house. I have been doing everything myself for 6 years and it's just become too much for me. The person I would like to hire has been working as a nurse in Thailand for 4 years, she is 25 years old. I have talked to her about how much I can afford to pay her and she we are both happy with 500$ a month. This may seem very low, but I don't need that much help, and it's as much money as she is currently making in Thailand but here she would work much less hours and I would not be charging her room and board or any other expenses so it's a pretty good deal for her to be able to save money. I have been looking over the canadian immigration website for a while and to me it seems like she fits all of the criteria they require for someone to be a live-in caregiver, however her english is not so good and I have offered to pay for her to go to english school in Thailand to get better at it. My question is... Do I stand any chance of getting approved to bring her here as a live-in caregiver if I can only pay her 500$ a month ? and should I hire someone to help me with the labour market opinion or is it something I can handle doing on my own ? I have seen websites that charge 1000$ for help doing the LMO, but I am no stranger to paperwork over the years and if it's not too crazy I would rather save the money and do it myself, but I really don't want to screw this up so if it's a better idea to pay someone then so be it. I just don't know how good of a case I have to bring in someone as my live-in caregiver, although my health situation is not going to change and I really could use someone to help me with house duties, helping take care of my 3 dogs, and just having someone here in case I fall out of my chair or injure myself trying to take a shower or getting into bed. I am so happy to have found this site, I hope there is someone that can help me as I have read over lots of caregiver posts here and the people on this site have a lot of knowledge about canada immigration and I appreciate any advice or help anyone can give me. Thanks !

-The Guy in the Chair

 

[GuyintheChair]

thank you for your response. I could offer whatever minimum wage is, but is there a minimum amount of hours required ? as I could give her 10$ per hour, 12 hours a week, 480$ per month?

 

[job_seeker]

thank you for your response. I could offer whatever minimum wage is, but is there a minimum amount of hours required ? as I could give her 10$ per hour, 12 hours a week, 480$ per month?

There is a minimum number of hours (based on provincial standards). What province are you in?

 

[GuyintheChair]

BC

 

[Leon]

You have to offer her the standard wage to get the LMO approved. You could contact Service Canada where you are to ask exactly what that would be, how many hours minimum, how much you can charge her for room and board etc. You have to act as a regular employer, including giving her pay slips, withholding taxes, EI, CPP etc. You also have to keep in mind that a part of what she gets out of this deal is being able to apply for PR in 2 years and if she is only working 12 hours a week, even if Service Canada might allow it, that might interfere with her being able to apply for PR later.

Of course you could make some kind of deal between the two of you to pay her less than it says in her contract but if she gets pissed off at you, she can sue you for unpaid wages. This actually happened to somebody who was on this forum who'd hired her friend as her nanny.

 

[GuyintheChair]

thank you Leon, that is great information. I have thought about what you said, agreeing to a contract with her on paper but having a deal between us that would be more in line with exactly what the both of us want. I sure would hate to be sued for unpaid waged in the future, but compared to the things I've been through in the past, that is really small potatoes. About her applying for PR after 2 years, the thing is, she would also be coming here as my girlfriend, and once she spent the 2 years as my caregiver, I would marry her and then apply to help her get her PR card as my spouse. I am not ready to marry her to bring her here as of yet, but after 2 years of her being my caregiver I would have lots of time to make plans to get married. If is not accepted that a person would marry their caregiver, then I would apply to sponsor her as common law or whatever I have to do. I am so glad to have all the great input from everyone here, I have been searching for all this information through google but nothing compares to the kind of advice and experience all of you folks have here. Thank you very much !

 

[Leon]

In that case, it sounds like a good plan. Another alternative would be to apply for her visit visa to come visit you and keep applying for her extensions until you qualify as a common law but I have heard that it's very hard for Thai people to get visit visas so the live-in-caregiver sounds like a better option.

If that doesn't work out, you can try to hook her up with some other job at BC healthmatch, see http://www.healthmatchbc.org/ and get her in on a work permit working as a nurse in BC. She could still live with you and help you out even if she is working somewhere else.

Good luck

 

[job_seeker]

For BC:

Standard Minimum Wage ($8.00/hour)
The standard minimum wage rate is $8.00/hour. This wage will apply when calculating the wage that should be paid for the first eight hours of your day, or the first 40 hours of your week. For other time periods, see the section on overtime.

http://www.wcdwa.ca/PDFs/employment_rights_for_live_in_caregivers.pdf

If you hire her as a caregiver, it is not only her salary that you think of. For EI and CPP the employer pays a corresponding percentage to the government.

 

[job_seeker]

Expected expense for employer employing a live in caregiver (4 or less in a household).

LIC @$8/hr:

Gross Income: 1,408.00 (average of 22 days per month)
Less Room and Board: 325.00
Less CPP: 55.26
Less EI: 24.36
Less Federal Tax: 56.52
Net Income for LIC: 946.86


Employer's Counterpart:
CPP: 55.26
EI: 34.10

 

[GuyintheChair]

Thanks for this great info, it is really helping me figure everything out and giving me a good idea of how much money I would need to set aside to hire her. So from what I read, there is a minimum of 40 hours a week @ 8.00$ an hour. On one of the government websites I looked at lastnight I saw that there was a maximum of 40 hours a week, but it didn't state any minimum, so thanks for clearing that up. It really sucks that there is a minimum amount of hours required because I don't need 40 hours a week worth of help, as I have been doing everything on my own up until now, and I would basically be paying her to sit and watch hockey with me half the time, but if that's what I have to do for a couple years to get her here then so be it. I have one more question since I would now have to pay her approximately 1000$ a month, does the government look at how much I earn per month to see if I can afford her services ? or do they look at money in bank accounts to ensure I can afford her ? I ask this because I am receiving insurance settlement cheques every month that amount to 1700$ a month. I have paid off my house already so I don't have a mortgage, but I'm not sure if they will look at my 1700$ a month and say I don't have enough funds to afford her and pay my own living expenses. And, because it's from an insurance settlement, it is not taxable income, and therefor does not show up on my t4's, which on paper makes it look like I don't even have any income. I do have enough money in the bank to cover her cost of 12,000$ a year for 2 years, but I'm not sure if they will take that into account. I just want to make sure I cover all my bases before I start my application because I don't want to be upset when things come up that I didn't think of before hand. This is such a great forum, you all have really helped me a lot , thanks again !!

 

[Leon]

I don't think that there is a minimum of 40 hours a week. Where did you see that? Immigration generally considers full time work to be 1950 hours a year or 37.5 hours a week but for live in caregivers in Ontario, anything above 30 hours is considered full time but I don't know about BC. You should really ask Service Canada to tell you what is considered a market rate and how many hours are the minimum. At http://www.rhdcc-hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/workplaceskills/foreign_workers/advertReq/wageadreq.shtml it says like you said, 40 hours as a maximum but no minimum.

When you apply for the LMO, you should include a cover letter stating your financial situation, you can show them some bank statements to prove that you do not have a mortgage and that you are getting monthly payments. If they do not think you can afford to hire a live in caregiver, that could become a reason for denial.

 

[GuyintheChair]

"Standard Minimum Wage ($8.00/hour)
The standard minimum wage rate is $8.00/hour. This wage will apply when calculating the wage that should be paid for the first eight hours of your day, or the first 40 hours of your week. For other time periods, see the section on overtime."

my apologies, I read this statement and understood it as saying the first 40 hour of the week, meaning the caregiver must work 40 hours a week minimum, but the person writing it meant it to be an indication of 8.00$ per hour for 40 hours and then anything over that is paid overtime. I will call service canada and get an exact number for how many hours is the minimum allowed for BC, and I will be crossing my fingers in hopes that it's less than 40 hours a week.