Who can be a Canadian experience class employer?

[aa105942]

My friend is a Canadian citizen and opened up a small business recently and have asked me to work for his company in a technical position (I am on post grad work permit). I have read in other forums that people say you should work for a “legit” employer to be eligible to apply for CEC.

What is a ‘legit' employer in the case of CEC?
Is small business considered a legit company?
Can a newly registered company be my employer?
Does it matter how many employees the company have?
Is it important how much the company's annual sale and revenue is?

My lawyers says that you can work for any employer even if it is a very small and new registered company because you are not required to apply for LMO

I appreciate any comment.

 

[jes_ON]

It's true that there are no specific requirements about the type of employer, but VOs have to be able to verify an applicant's experience, and sometimes they cannot verify the existence or purpose of a company. At least his business is registered, that's a positive start. If a google search about the business or your employer turns up nothing, your application can be in trouble.

Too often, friends/family agree to help an applicant "game" the system - a couple of years ago, there was a member who actually posted about his "boss" (friend, uncle) who went so far as to submit fake tax documents for him (all he had to do was pay the taxes), so you have to understand, there are good reasons for the VOs to be skeptical.

Another hazard - sometimes new business owners take a couple of years to learn the ropes, to do things correctly (like the tax documents), and you can end up being the one who pays.

The CEC class is designed for a "classical" employer-employee relationship, for full-time salaried professionals. Different compensation arrangements sometimes are on the table for start-ups, which again make the job a difficult fit for the CEC class (there are other classes in that case).

Basically, inform yourself week about the documentary requirements of the program (read the instructions and document checklist), and if your employer can provide those documents, and has a legitimate public presence, including a business license, tax documents, annual report, etc., then you should be OK.

And then, realize, that the program has some minor or major changes about once year, and will be changing in January, and you'll have to update yourself then...

 

[ZingyDNA]

Agree with everything jes_ON said. Just wanna add that if your employer is capable of filing for an LMO (not necessarily willing to do it for you) or has done it before, they will probably be considered legit by CIC. This is because in order to file an LMO, they have to provide business license, tax docs among many other stuffs. So if they can do that, they are operating their business properly.

 

[aa105942]

It's true that there are no specific requirements about the type of employer, but VOs have to be able to verify an applicant's experience, and sometimes they cannot verify the existence or purpose of a company. At least his business is registered, that's a positive start. If a google search about the business or your employer turns up nothing, your application can be in trouble.

Too often, friends/family agree to help an applicant "game" the system - a couple of years ago, there was a member who actually posted about his "boss" (friend, uncle) who went so far as to submit fake tax documents for him (all he had to do was pay the taxes), so you have to understand, there are good reasons for the VOs to be skeptical.

Another hazard - sometimes new business owners take a couple of years to learn the ropes, to do things correctly (like the tax documents), and you can end up being the one who pays.

The CEC class is designed for a "classical" employer-employee relationship, for full-time salaried professionals. Different compensation arrangements sometimes are on the table for start-ups, which again make the job a difficult fit for the CEC class (there are other classes in that case).

Basically, inform yourself week about the documentary requirements of the program (read the instructions and document checklist), and if your employer can provide those documents, and has a legitimate public presence, including a business license, tax documents, annual report, etc., then you should be OK.

And then, realize, that the program has some minor or major changes about once year, and will be changing in January, and you'll have to update yourself then...

Thank you for your very informative reply to my question. My employer company is about a month old so they haven't filed any tax yet. Do you think this would be an issue?

 

[aa105942]

Agree with everything jes_ON said. Just wanna add that if your employer is capable of filing for an LMO (not necessarily willing to do it for you) or has done it before, they will probably be considered legit by CIC. This is because in order to file an LMO, they have to provide business license, tax docs among many other stuffs. So if they can do that, they are operating their business properly.

As you may know the process for LMO is a lot more complicated and requires more documents from employers, but in case of CEC, CIC requires literally no document about the legitimacy of the employer except for their name, number, address and website and these kinds of information say nothing about the size, number of employees and revenue of the company.
My friend's company is about 1 month old and he has no employee on payroll yet and put limited investment to start his business. it certainly takes time for his business to pick up so I don't think he is eligible for apply for LMO.

 

[jes_ON]

Thank you for your very informative reply to my question. My employer company is about a month old so they haven't filed any tax yet. Do you think this would be an issue?

Well, by the time you work a year for him, it shouldn't be an issue. But as I said, newbies sometimes get it wrong (well, not just newbies!).
One of our list members just had a really had time because of payroll screw ups, and trying to explain to CIC why his t4 didn't match the income in stated in the letter...