shanethompson

Help please
Ive just come back from vancouver after attending an interview for a senior management position.
As part of the discussions i have found out that they do not have a LMO in place?
This has now been applied for

Question
How long does the LMO take on average to be approved, (the job had been advertised for 3 months with no suitable canadian being found with the right skills to take the company to the next level)

Thanks indvance

Aviator

Don't take for granted the LMO will be approved. Many are being turned down, some because HRSDC consider there should be plenty of local labour, some because the advertising was not done according to HRSDC requirements. The process can take several weeks or months depending on whether more information is requested, approval is not a forgone conclusion, so don't pack you bags just yet.

christmasoompa

Yep, what he said. ^^^^

And I'll move this to the immigration forum - for future reference, any visa related queries belong in there.

helcat12

They cannot apply for an LMO for such a post without knowing who they are going to employ, so they couldn't really do it in advance of your interview Companies who employ a lot of temporary foreign workers, for instance seasonal workers can do that but this is a different matter.
To give you some good news, my OH just got his LMO decision on Friday, positive, for 2 years in just over 3 weeks in Vancouver. They quoted 15 days when we applied and they were not far off.
Just make sure that the company have advertised in the right places - this matters as much as for the right length of time. Just their own website is not usually sufficient, so check that out. They also need to have advertised within the last three months, so I assume this advertising was done recently or was still current when they interviewed you?
The salary must also be over the average stated for the role and the experience you bring. (They have rejected some LMO recently because although the pay being offered was within the range on the HRSDC website, it was not above the average.)
Assuming these things check out, be hopeful! They do say yes from time to time, whatever people say
In any case, you should know very soon.
Good Luck!!!

shanethompson

Helcat12, thank you so much for the positive reply, there seems to be too many people with negative responses, you have to be positive to keep going, otherwise you will fail before you start, lets hope i will get some good news soon

helcat12

There are a lot of negative comments made about LMO, but that is mostly people talking from a majority viewpoint. I am only interested in one LMO - ours!!!
I am not denying the majority of LMO applications probably are rejected and for good reasons, such as insufficient advertising or low pay, but that doesn't mean an individual shouldn't try if they feel the company has fulfilled the requirements. As long as you do what they ask for and the job genuinely is in shortage and you can prove it through what your company has done to recruit, then you should have a positive outcome. HRSDC are just doing their job, which as far as I can see is to make sure foreign workers do not undercut Canadians on wages for jobs in their own country.
Fair enough, I think.
If your company have done things correctly, you have every hope of success. Good Luck to you.

Aviator

It is also no good taking the view that an LMO will be approved and it is a formality. It is not. I have seen more declined than approved, but some do get approved, just less now than there used to be.

christmasoompa

Could you not have taken the time to thank the other people that replied to your thread? Sorry, but I find that quite rude - only thanking the person that gave you a positive response!

The statistics are very clear, the vast majority of LMO's are being refused at the moment, so The Aviator and I were just pointing out that you shouldn't make any plans until it's been granted and that it's not an automatic thing. It may not have been what you wanted to hear, but it's still useful info!

Good luck, hope you get a positive response first time.

wolstie

Also note that just because your LMO is valid for 2 years, it doesn't mean your work permit will be. My LMO was valid for 3 years but I only got a 1 year work permit (it's happened to a few others on here too).

Thank God for the PNP route.

helcat12

That is true, but since for us our FSW Cat 2 application is already over 9 months since submission, we really aren't expecting it to be much longer before the whole business is concluded (certainly not more than another year!). I just wanted to let the OP know that the LMO isn't always issued for only 1 year in case this was an issue for him.