Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s cap on study permit applications will not be enough to stop the inflationary effect on rents due to increasing numbers of international students in Canada – but it will slow down the pace of that inflation, says an RBC Economics report.
“Assuming similar enrollment rates and outflow patterns as those observed in the three post-pandemic years, we estimate 391,000 new international students will enter Canada this year and 291,000 will graduate or otherwise see their study permits expire,” wrote RBC economist Rachel Battaglia.
“This means the number of international students in Canada will continue to grow by 100,000, about 55 per cent less than the net increase in 2023.”
With that growth in international students in Canada, the pressure on rents from the international students’ demand for housing will moderate but not drop in the short-term.
But even though we’re expecting growth to moderate, this doesn’t translate to an outright fall in rental demand, at least not in the near-term. Given nearly all international students live in rented accommodation – we’re assuming 97 per cent – we estimate this slowdown could cut demand for new rentals by international students in half relative to 2023.”
As Canada struggled with the severe labour shortages in the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) removed the 20-hour weekly restriction on work hours for international students, allowing them to work up to 40 hours every week.
That temporary measure was initially intended to be in place until the end of last year but Immigration Minister Marc Miller has extended that deadline to the end of April this year.
Now, the immigration minister wants to scale back international students’ hours in the workplace.
“We have gotten addicted to temporary foreign workers,” Miller has reportedly told Bloomberg News
“Any large industry trying to make ends meet will look at the ability to drive down wages. There is an incentive to drive labour costs down. It’s something that’ll require a larger discussion.”
The proposed move to cut back on the work hours of international students comes in the wake of the IRCC having processed more than one million study permit applications last year.
“We finalized 1,089,600 study permit applications (including extensions) in 2023, up from 917,900 in 2022,” notes the IRCC website.
Last month, the immigration minister limited study permits to be handed out to international students in the coming year by the IRCC to only 606,250 study permit applications in 2024.
