The latest numbers we have are from the federal government. They only release numbers on an annual basis at the end of the year, so keep in mind that the numbers are a little bit old. As it stands right now, there are about 65,000 temporary foreign workers in the province. The majority of them are working in low-level service jobs for very low wages. They're the most easily exploited group of workers.
There are about 20,000 working in the oil sands and in construction. Those numbers are set to rise. In fact, just a couple of days ago I was talking to a project manager for a big construction firm, and he was saying that right now his company alone has about 2,200 temporary foreign workers working in the skilled trades.
As a result of the accelerated process for LMO approvals that was just introduced by the federal government about a week and a half ago, this guy is in the process of filling out paperwork for a dramatic increase in the number of skilled trades they're bringing in under the program. Just in his division of his construction company he envisions the number of temporary foreign workers jumping from about 2,200 to between 3,500 and 4,000 in the next year. That's for just one company. So we're on the cusp of what I think is a dramatic jump in the number of temporary foreign workers in Alberta, in general, but especially in the skilled trades.
From our perspective, that's what the new announcements on the temporary foreign worker program are all about. They're about paving the way for employers in the oil sands and related construction companies to get access to more temporary foreign workers, and very significantly also at a cheaper rate, because they say they can pay them as much as 15% less than the going rate for Canadian workers.