Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup on his re-election and very much look forward to working with him in the House of Commons.
Earlier this month, Statistics Canada announced that the unemployment rate had decreased to 6%, within 0.3 percentage points of February 2020 levels. As our pandemic recovery continues, employers across the country are seeking to hire in increasing numbers. Quebec, however, continues to experience workforce recruitment challenges, which predated the pandemic and have only been exacerbated over the past year.
That is why I am happy to highlight progress on the implementation of our government's pilot project with the Government of Quebec to provide the province's employers with temporary measures under the temporary foreign worker program. As part of this collaborative effort, first announced in August of this year, a measure designed to streamline advertising recruitment requirements for specific in-demand occupations was implemented on December 6. The Government of Canada has also committed to implementing additional measures as early as January 2022, including an increase in the maximum number of temporary foreign workers that employers in specific sectors can hire.
The occupations and sectors selected by Quebec for this pilot have been identified following consultations with labour market stakeholders as part of the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail. This was done to ensure that the flexibilities established under the pilot project are representative of labour market needs in the province and do not displace opportunities for Canadian workers. In addition to these measures and as part of this initiative, the governments of Canada and Quebec, in consultation with Quebec labour market partners, will also be adding to the list of occupations that are currently benefiting from a simpler process to hire TFWs. These additional flexibilities are expected to be introduced in early 2022.
The implementation of these key measures under this pilot project with the Government of Quebec signals the important progress the Government of Canada is making to balance flexibilities under the temporary foreign worker program with the labour needs of Quebec employers. Access to temporary foreign workers is an important element of the shorter-term labour market strategy for many employers. As Canada continues on the road to economic recovery, our government will continue to help ensure that workforce recruitment needs are being met, all while ensuring the health and safety of temporary foreign workers.
We will keep working with our Quebec counterparts and we will do what needs to be done to ensure Quebec gets the workers it needs.