Federal job-bank database, part of TFW program, offers jobs long since filled

OTTAWA – Hundreds of the more than 110,000 jobs listed on the federal government’s much-lauded job bank went online months ago and have long since been filled.

From customer service representatives in New Brunswick to food service supervisors in B.C. and RCMP clerks in Saskatchewan, the job bank advertises positions that are no longer available.

The bank is a critical component of the besieged labour market opinion process: employers are required to post ads seeking Canadian workers for four weeks before they can hire temporary foreign workers.

Employment Minister Jason Kenney says the job bank receives seven million hits a month from job seekers, with tens of thousands of Canadians having signed up in the last two years to be notified about openings.

The government also relies in part from job bank data to determine what regions of the country are clamouring for labour.

But job-seekers complain that many of the jobs are old, and that employers rarely respond to emailed applications or queries for more information about the positions being advertised.

Some are suspicious of the job bank’s true purpose as outrage mounts over the litany of Canada companies and government departments, federal and provincial alike, that have turned to temporary foreign workers in recent years.

Gilles Hudicourt, an Air Transat pilot who’s a vocal critic of the temporary foreign worker program, says he suspects that aviation companies simply post their ads on the job bank to meet the requirement but have no intention of filling positions with Canadian workers.

The government acknowledges that Employment and Social Development Canada, in partnership with provinces, territories and external partners, maintains the site. But it says employers are responsible for removing their ads once the job is filled.

Follow Lee-Anne Goodman on Twitter at @leeanne25