Employers are often obliged to submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) prior to hiring foreign to achieve a positive LMIA, a Canadian employer must demonstrate that no Canadian or permanent resident worker is available to do the job in issue and that hence a foreign worker is necessary.

LMIA applications should include the following information:
• Efforts made to attract Canadian citizens/permanent residents who are available
• The salary given for this post is comparable to that paid to Canadians/permanent residents in the same occupation in the region.
• The occupation's working conditions are compliant with current provincial labour market norms.
• Any possible benefits that hiring a foreign worker may have on the Canadian labour market, such as job creation or skill and knowledge transfer
• Employers will be obliged to provide transition plans for high-wage employment, demonstrating increasing efforts to hire Canadians in the long run.

High Wage
Employers interested in hiring high-wage employees must submit transition plans with their Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) application to demonstrate that they are taking efforts to gradually lessen their reliance on temporary foreign workers. High-wage employees are individuals who make more than the region's median hourly income for a specific occupation.
Transition plans are intended to guarantee that companies recruiting foreign employees are adhering to the program's objectives. This means they are utilising the programme as a last and restricted alternative to address temporary labour shortages when eligible Canadians are not available, ensuring that qualified Canadians have first crack at available positions.
Certain jobs in Quebec are "facilitated," which means that companies are not required to conduct local recruitment efforts in conjunction with their applications to hire temporary foreign employees in any of the facilitated occupations.

Low-Wage Employees
Employers hiring low-wage workers are not required to submit transition plans as part of their Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA). They must, however, adhere to a distinct set of rules.

To limit access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) while ensuring that Canadians are always given priority for available positions, the Government of Canada imposed a quota on the number of low-wage temporary foreign workers that a firm may hire. Additionally, certain low-wage jobs may be denied processing under the LMIA. Employers with ten or more employees applying for a new LMIA are limited to a ten percent workforce made up of low-wage temporary foreign workers. This cap will be phased in over the course of 2015 and 2016 to provide employers who exceed the 10% cap time to move and adjust properly.