Alta. to review foreign worker program

The Alberta government is reviewing a program that brings temporary foreign workers to the province, officials said Friday.

The review will look atwhat impact the arrival of thousands of workers from out of the country has on Alberta's workforce, Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk said.

The government is also renewing $850,000 in funding for agencies that help immigrants adjust to living and working in Alberta, officials said.

"While our focus will always be jobs for Albertans and Canadians first, it is important that we recognize the contributions of temporary foreign workers to our province making them feel welcome and included in our communities is simply the right thing to do," said Lukaszuk.

"Our natural population growth in this country is pretty much flat-lined at zero. We have a cohort of workers that are approaching retirement age otherwise known as the baby boomers and for every person that retires, there is only a fraction of a person that enters the workforce," he said.

Calgary MLA Theresa Woo-Paw, Lukaszuk's parliamentary assistant, is leading the review. She is set to report her findings and recommendations by spring 2011.

There are more than 60,000 temporary foreign workers in Alberta, according to provincial officials.

The Temporary Foreign Worker program, a federal initiative, was established to help employers fill temporary jobs.

"[It] helped to quickly fill temporary jobs during Alberta's boom, it is a program that Alberta values and will always welcome," Woo-Paw said. "Now that we have some space to breathe, let's make sure we plan and have the right services in place for the future."