Too Little, Too Late

So, Jason Kenney has applied some bandages to the hemorrhaging Temporary Foreign Workers program.  

The changes prevent employers in places with high unemployment rates from applying for temporary foreign workers in the lowest wage and skill groups in the accommodation, food service and retail sectors. 

A cap is also being placed on the number of low-wage temporary foreign workers an employer can hire at each worksite: 30 per cent of a worksite's employees starting immediately, dropping to 10 per cent by July 2016. 

Companies will also be required to re-apply each year to hire low-wage temporary foreign workers, instead of every two years. They'll pay more for the privilege, too: $1,000 per employee, up from $275.

Frankly, this isn't much more than a bit of window dressing.  It won't make any significant difference to the impact of this program - the damage is already done.  At most it will force businesses to start the process of weaning themselves off the program.

I see Alberta is already bleating about how awful these changes are.  I'd be sympathetic, but frankly this crying is nothing more than a bunch of bleating about money from a group of people who seem to think that hiring people is an unnecessary expense.

Business needs to wake up to the reality that running a business requires people.  Not automatons.  Looking at your people as "an expense" is a piece of 1990s MBA-speak that we need to shed.  People are an investment, not an expense.  Any business which views its staff as "an expense" is doomed to fail.