There are three categories that fall under the 10 day fast track:

Highest-demand occupations
These occupations:
are skilled trades on the list of eligible occupations; AND
have a prevailing wage that is at, or above the provincial/territorial median hourly wage where the job is located.

Short-duration work periods
These positions:
are for a period of employment of 120 calendar days or less; AND
have a prevailing wage that is at, or above the provincial/territorial median hourly wage where the job is located.

Highest-paid
These occupations have a prevailing wage that is, at or above the top 10% of wages in the province/territory where the job is located

What you are talking about is the highest paid jobs.
My husband comes under the highest demands jobs. There is different criteria for each one.

Well it's hard to believe that the 10 day process is actually in effect then as our case involves a high skilled Trade on the list of High demand NOCs, and has a wage that is much higher than the median wage for the province (alberta). We have been waiting months.

I think they have suggested the 10 day process in principle, but maybe with the new requirements and level of applications means that the 10 day process may not be workable in practice. Just my two cents

This is also quoted from the ESDC website stating the 3 categories for the 10 day service. My husband falls under the one in red:

Highest-Demand, Highest-Paid and Shortest-Duration Occupations:
LMIAs for highest-demand occupations (skilled trades), highest-paid (top 10 percent) occupations or short-duration work periods (120 days or less) will now be provided within a 10-business-day service standard. As is the case for all requests to hire temporary foreign workers, LMIAs would only be granted after a rigorous review of all of the elements of the employer’s application in each of these cases. This service standard will be met by processing these applications first, not by reducing the thoroughness of these LMIAs.


Highest-demand occupations
Initially, the 10-day service standard for highest-demand occupations will be limited to the skilled trades where the prevailing wage is at or above the provincial/territorial median wage. Positions in the skilled trades are essential to the development of major infrastructure and natural resource extraction projects, which are vital to Canada’s economic growth. Over time, other occupations may be added based on evidence from more and better labour market information.

Highest-paid occupations
The 10-day service standard will also be available to employers requesting temporary foreign workers in the highest-paid occupations when the position requested has a prevailing wage in the relevant economic regian that is at or above the top 10 percent of wages in the province/territory where the job is located, such as physicians. This wage level indicates that a temporary foreign worker is the highest-skilled in their occupation and that those skills are not easily found in the Canadian labour market.

Shortest-duration occupations
Finally, the 10-day service standard will also be available for employers seeking temporary foreign workers for a short duration, defined as 120 calendar days or less in any occupation where the prevailing wage is at or above the provincial or territorial median wage. Positions falling under this category include those related to repairs to manufacturing equipment and warranty work. Renewal of short-duration LMIAs will not be permitted, except in exceptional circumstances.

You only have to meet the criteria in 1 of the three categories that applies to the job you have been offered. The 10 day service was only introduced on 21/07/2014 so this is a new process. It still takes 4 weeks to advertise the job, 1-2 weeks to gather the information and fill out the application forms, and 10 days to process the application.
It does also say on the website that Employers, who meet the criteria for processing under the 10-day service standard, will not receive this 10 day service if:
•the application is missing information;
•additional time is required to consult the employer on details contained in the application; or
•the employer is selected for an Employer Compliance Review or inspection.
So this may be why it is taking longer for some people if the application forms are not being filled out correctly etc.

I think I have more chance of getting a response on my PR app then getting my LMIA app processed anytime soon,

Are your referring to getting a Positive Eligibility Review or getting permanent residence itself? I wouldn't be too shocked if you're referring to the latter. LMIA processing times could very well take years if they keep sending applications back every time the forms change.

Meanwhile, I just spoke with Service Canada AGAIN trying to probe them for information about what goes on in their offices. Here's how it goes:

1. LMIA application reaches Service Canada. They receive around 400 applications each day.

2. LMIA application stays in a pile or queue for 3 - 4 weeks until somebody picks it up, gives it a system file number and enters its details into the electronic filing system. At this point, they send the employer a mail or fax containing the file number.

3. LMIA application then goes through several different layers of inspection by different people. One person checks for the transition to a Canadian workforce, one for advertising, one for regional labour market data analysis, etc. After it goes through all these people over a time spanning many weeks, it then goes to a final officer who approves or rejects it.

4. They mail the result back to employers.

The thing I don't get though is why it's taking them so long to put names on my employer's LMO. The names should be added after stage 1 if the LMO has already been pre-approved. Is their name typist on a year-long sabbatical or something?

Maybe they ran out of ink

Maybe they spend half the day in their offices playing computer games, chatting on facebook and watching videos on killsometime.com just like some government officials down in the US do. All Service Canada offices need to be audited on issues concerning their work performance.

Maybe these ESDC employees should just outsource their work to China and pay their Chinese contractors one-fifth of their salaries to do the work much better and faster. That would certainly speed things up and make life easier for us. Just be careful to not get caught like this guy was.

Blimey. So they receive over 400 applications a day and you think they're not working hard enough? The sense of entitlement on this thread is starting to rival that of the IEC thread, and that's really saying something!

I suspect that everybody at ESDC is as fed up with all the changes as you all are, and are working hard to try and please everybody. Saying they need 'auditing' because of their 'work performance' is very unfair imo.

LMO's have always taken months, so the current timescale is no different to how it's been for years. All Temp Foreign Workers have to wait the same timeframe and just wait their turn in the queue.

The only way that the queue will get shorter is if ESDC hire a bunch more workers, but given that it's a government entity and that the Canadian public would be in uproar if they found out that their hard earned taxes are going to pay for quicker processing for foreign workers, what do you think the chances are?

I think there is a very good chance as we are good, wonderful and special people on this thread.....much better than the iec lot!?! Only joking haha.

Of course you are. I just don't get it when people are having a go at ESDC employees who are probably paid a pittance, and hard working government employees attempting to get through 200,000+ applications each year. It's not their fault the rules changed.

It was a frequent refrain on the IEC thread, that they couldn't understand what was taking CIC so long, as if they were the only applicants for any visas that they had to deal with, and it became quite amusing for us longstanding members in the end.

Aye, totes fair enough, in fact your words have made me realise actually that it's not fair at all having a go at them and you've made me realise that our turn will come , Lest we shall remain dignified and patient :-)

I know that regular LMOs/LMIAs take months to get, but name additions to pre-approved ones only take 2 - 3 weeks according to them. I've been waiting 3 times longer than that now. I'm baffled by why they're taking so long and even the phone representatives at ESDC themselves say that I'm waiting too long and have told my employer to keep following up and sending them urgent requests for expedited processing of a long-overdue name addition. The people at the call center are not the ones physically processing the papers but they just check the statuses of LMOs/LMIAs and gives the employers updates about them on behalf of the processing centers.

As for whether I think ESDC officials are working hard enough or not, the truth is that I really don't know the answer to that and it's a really good question. After all these recent revelations about US government employees wasting time on non-work-related activities, I'm somewhat skeptical about what goes on behind closed personnel doors at ESDC.

However, I was joking about the job outsourcing part. If they literally outsourced LMO processing to some other country, then every Canadian would be out of a job. The LMIAs would be approved within days for citizens of the contractor country (assuming it's sufficiently populous) and the amount of TFWs would skyrocket while unemployment rates across Canada approach 100%. However, some countries like the US are actually stupid enough to outsource some of their government services.

So your employer already has an 'unnamed LMIA' in place and is just seeking to add your name to it? If so, that is odd.

If it's a 'pre-approval LMO' though (under the old system), then I'd understand why it's taken so much longer (in fact, I'd be surprised your employer hasn't been told to reapply under the new system).

So it will depend on whether it's a LMO/LMIA I'd guess.

I understand your point but it's very frustrating that my application has been sent back three times now to fill in an new application every time . Imagine if CIC did that part way through processing an app, yes there's your whole app back cause we changed one box on the form and we changed it after your app was received. No one would ever get PR. I just don't get what their doing if they ask for my transcripts and then a week later ask my employer to fill a new form, surely if they asking for transcripts they are processing the app and so to restart the process again just seems ridiculous . I just don't get how the EDSC system works. So my apologies if they get paid a pittance and are over worked that's not nice and I suppose I'm not having a dig them it's just the stupid policy out in place by the government and if they do get 200,000 plus apps a year if each app is treated the same as my employers app for me then they don't have a hope to get any of those apps done this year.