After years of depending largely of the Temporary Foreign Worker program for which Tim Hortons was nicknamed as 'Singh Hortons', the restaurant chain announced on Monday that they decided to scale back its foreign hiring and commit to hiring 10,000 local workers as the chain is now expaning across the country. “We have not lobbied the government since last year and we won’t be lobbying them on TFWs any time soon given our commitment to hire locally everywhere possible,” said Duncan Fulton, chief corporate officer of Restaurant Brands, the parent company of Tim Hortons.
Fulton noted that there was never any question of cheap labor as the wages are the same for all but "at the end of the day, our owners would prefer to hire locally almost 100 per cent of the time".
“Our restaurant owners have always been committed to local hiring. We think one of the biggest misperceptions about Tim Hortons is how the TFW program has been used. Less than 4% of team members were hired through the TFW program," a spokesperson said as quoted by National Post.
“Our local hiring campaign is targeting anyone who wants to work at a Tim Hortons who is living in Canada and permitted to work in Canada – our restaurant owners don’t discriminate in their hiring, so that could be Canadian students, international students, any member of the community," the spokesperson said.
The dependence of foreign labor started during the pandemic when there was a labor shortage, the restaurant said. "The use of the TFW program amongst owners has gone down by 50 per cent from 2024. It was not the same as 2021, during the pandemic, where there was a real need for foreign labour,” Fulton said. He added that there was a common misconception among Canadians that Tim Hortons employs an excess of foreign labour because many of its employees are racially diverse. “Canada’s communities have become more diverse and so have our restaurants.”
