On April 1, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will announce new regulations for Canadian employers looking to hire foreign workers. The new regulations will cover various aspects of hiring foreign workers, such as the amount of time a job offer is valid to the actual terms of a work permit.

Employers will only be able to keep a foreign worker in Canada for four years. After that period, the foreign worker would have to leave Canada and not work in Canada for at least four years, although there may be exceptions.

Labour Market Opinions, required for many job offers, will only be valid for 6 months, rather than one year. If a work permit is not obtained for the foreign worker before the six-month expiry, employers must apply for a new Labour Market Opinion.

To protect potential foreign workers from fraudulent job offers, CIC will be enacting stricter guidelines for assessing whether a job offer is genuine or not.

Any employer who is found to be violating the new rules could be banned from hiring foreign workers for two years.

According to CIC, these new regulations are meant to protect Canadian jobs and foreign workers who will be working in Canada.

Canadavisa.com will report on the new changes once they have been announced.