Learn how to apply for permanent residence in Ontario if you are a foreign worker in an in-demand occupation in a specific sector such as agriculture, construction or personal support work with a job offer in Ontario.
The Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills stream gives foreign workers with a job offer in specific in-demand occupations such as in agriculture, construction, and other select occupations the opportunity to apply to permanently live and work in Ontario. This stream is open to foreign workers in and outside of Canada.
You must first register in the OINP ’s Expression of Interest System and receive an invitation to apply before you can apply online to be nominated by the Ontario government for permanent residence.
If you are nominated, your next step is to apply to the federal government through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada ( IRCC ). They make the final decision on who becomes a permanent resident.
Before you can apply to this stream you must:
If you are using a representative, or you are a representative, the submission process is different. Learn more about how to appoint a representative or register as one.
Applications submitted by self-appointed representatives are invalid and will be withdrawn by the OINP . Your application will be returned as incomplete and your application fee will be refunded.
Follow these steps to apply:
Please note your application file number is different than your EOI file number.
To qualify under the Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills stream, you must have a job offer in Ontario from an employer that meets the following requirements.
Please refer to section 4 of Ontario Regulation 422/17 and the Employer Guide for more details on each requirement.
Important: In order for your application to be approved, the job offer must be effective the date that you are nominated by the OINP , if you are already working for the employer in the approved employment position; or if you are not, on the date you obtain a work permit and begin working in the approved employment position. This means that your employer must adhere to the terms and conditions in the job offer and begin paying you the approved wage once you are nominated and begin working.
The job offer must be for a full-time and permanent position.
Full-time means the job must be a minimum of 1,560 hours a year and a minimum of 30 hours of paid work per week.
Permanent means the job must have no end date (also known as an indeterminate duration). Job offers that are seasonal and/or contract based are ineligible.
Note that your job offer will not qualify if it affects the employment of a person involved in a labour dispute.
The position offered can be in any location in Ontario (inside and outside the Greater Toronto Area) and must be in one of the following occupations in National Occupational Classification ( NOC ) TEER category 4 or 5:
The position offered must be outside the Greater Toronto Area (City of Toronto, Durham, Halton, York and Peel regions) and must be in one of the following occupations in National Occupational Classification ( NOC ) TEER category 4 or 5:
The pay of the job offered must meet or be higher than the median wage level, for that occupation, in the specific region of Ontario where you will be working. To find the median wage, go to the Job Bank website. Enter the occupation title and NOC code of the job offer into the occupation search. Then enter the location where you will be working into the filter search. Refer to the median wage level listed on the chart.
If the wage of the employment region where the applicant will work or report to work is not available on the wage report, the Ontario wage should be used.
If you are already working in the position, the wage of the job offer must be equal to or greater than the wage level that the employer currently pays you in that position, in addition to meeting or exceeding the median wage level.
These wage requirements do not apply if you have a collective agreement (a written contract between the employer and a union), in your workplace, that determines your wages.
If you are paid an annual salary, your hourly wage can be calculated as follows:
The program does not consider remuneration by piece work, bonuses, commissions, vacation pay or non-financial compensation as comprising part of your hourly base wage to be included in the calculation of work experience.
The position offered must be urgently necessary to your employer’s business. This means that the job offer must align with your employer’s existing business activities and the position must be urgently needed to maintain or grow ongoing business activity.
The work you do while in the position of the job offer must occur primarily in Ontario.
You or any member of your family may only hold or have held equity in your employer’s business, either directly or indirectly if the equity is/was less than 10% and only if it was obtained as part of the remuneration package as an employee. The combined total amount of equity held by you, or any of your family members, must be less than 10%.
Note that a family member includes your spouse, common law partner and children under the age of 22, including their children.
After you receive an invitation to apply, you may apply to the Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills stream. You must meet all the requirements in the categories below in order for your application to be approved.
Please refer to section 7 of Ontario Regulation 422/17 for more details on each requirement.
You must have at least 9 months of cumulative paid full-time work experience (or the equivalent in part-time work) in Ontario, in the same in-demand occupation (same NOC code) as your job offer.
You must have gained this work experience within the three years prior to the date you submit your application, not the date you received the invitation to apply, while legally living and working in Ontario.
Cumulative means the work you’ve done must add up to 9 months — it does not have to be 9 months of continuous work.
Full-time work experience means working in a job with at least 30 hours of paid work in a week that amounts to at least 1,200 hours of paid work over a 9-month period.
Part-time equivalent work experience means:
Vacation periods, regular sick leave and other standard paid leave entitlements as provided for in collective agreements, workplace legislation and/or individual employer policies are not considered interruptions to full-time employment. Extended leaves are considered interruptions to full-time employment and are not to be included in the calculation of work experience.
If you are using periods of self-employment, you will need to provide employment documentation that is independently verifiable through third parties. This can include client reference letters indicating your duties and periods of work, as well as evidence of ongoing payments to you personally, for the services provided (for example, invoices). Please also note that your hours of self-employed work must be quantifiable to ensure that you accumulated at least 1,200 hours over 9 months of employment. Reference letters from yourself, your business partners and/or a family member are not accepted by the program.
If your job offer is for an occupation that requires a mandatory licence or other authorization in Ontario, you must hold a valid licence or authorization from the appropriate regulatory body in Ontario when you apply.
For more information on licences and authorizations in Ontario, please visit the Ontario’s Jobs and Employment website or the Skilled Trades Ontario website.
You must be able to understand, read, write and speak either English or French at a Canadian Language Benchmark ( CLB ) level 4 or higher.
To prove that you have the mandatory language skills, you must take an approved English or French language test before you submit your application to this stream.
The test date must be within 2 years prior to the application submission date.
For English tests, we accept:
For French tests, we accept:
You must have a Canadian secondary school (high school) diploma or credential, or its equivalent in another country.
If you completed your studies outside of Canada, you need to obtain an Educational Credential Assessment ( ECA ) report that proves your education is equivalent to a Canadian high school diploma.
The assessment must be done by one of the following organizations, designated by IRCC .
Each organization charges a different fee and has different processing times. Please check the website of each ECA organization to choose the one that is best for you.
You must provide the OINP with an electronic copy of the ECA report when you submit your online application. The report cannot be more than five years old at the time you submit your application
How to authorize the OINP to confirm your ECA results
We must be able to confirm your ECA results with the organization that completed it. This means you must authorize the organization to share the results with us (the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program) electronically.
It is not enough to authorize the organization to share the results of your assessment with IRCC for the purposes of your application to the OINP .
Do not request a duplicate paper copy from your ECA organization to be mailed out to the OINP.
Follow these steps to authorize the OINP to access your ECA results:
For the other organizations, no additional steps are required.
Please contact the ECA organization directly if you have any specific questions about the process for getting an ECA or how to authorize and share your ECA results with the OINP .
You must intend to live in Ontario after you’ve been granted permanent residence. We determine this by examining your ties to Ontario, which can include doing things like:
If you are applying from within Canada, you must have legal status (a visitor record, study permit, or work permit) at the time you apply and should maintain that status until the time of nomination.
You may apply if you are in ‘maintained status’ at the time of your OINP application submission. ‘Maintained status’ means that you submitted an application to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada ( IRCC ) to renew/extend your temporary status document (a visitor record, work permit, study permit) before its expiry date. You can remain in Canada and continue to work or study under the same conditions as your existing permit until a decision is made on your pending IRCC application.
Please refer to section 4 of Ontario Regulation 422/17 and the Employer Guide for more details on each requirement.
To qualify under the Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills stream, your employer must:
Employers must demonstrate that reasonable efforts were made to recruit a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident prior to offering the position to the applicant, unless:
If the applicant already has a valid work permit to work in Ontario, the employer does not also need to provide a positive LMIA .
The OINP is designed to assist employers in circumstances where their efforts to fill a position domestically were unsuccessful due to skills shortages. Employers are expected to conduct domestic recruitment efforts on their own, or with the assistance of recruitment agencies/specialists (for example, head hunters, human resource consulting firms) who have expertise in recruiting domestic talent.
Please note that the OINP does not consider domestic recruitment efforts carried out by an immigration representative to be reasonable. In such situations, a conflict of interest exists since the immigration representative stands to benefit financially should domestic recruitment efforts be determined to be unsuccessful. If an application indicates that domestic recruitment efforts were undertaken by an immigration representative, the application will be refused.
Your employer’s business must meet the relevant revenue requirement for the most recently completed fiscal year (the year used for tax or accounting purposes):
In cases where the applicant will work at more than one location, the location where the applicant will report to work means either:
Your employer’s full-time employee requirements are defined by your work location. These requirements are different depending on if your work location is inside or outside the Greater Toronto Area and must be met when the application is submitted.
If you will work at a location in the Greater Toronto Area ( GTA ), or will work at more than one location but report to work at a location in the GTA , your employer must have at least 5 full-time employees who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents who work or report to work at that location.
If you will work at a location outside the Greater Toronto Area, or will work at more than one location but report to work at a location outside the GTA , your employer must have at least 3 full-time employees full-time employees who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents who work or report to work at that location.
A full-time employee is an employee who has worked a minimum of 30 hours per week.
When the employer employs a mobile workforce, the minimum number of full-time employees they must have at the location where you will work or report to work can include both:
Your employer must make an application for approval of an employment position by filling out and signing an Application for Approval of an Employment Position (Employer Form).
If your application is missing the Application for Approval of an Employment Position (Employer Form), we will return it as incomplete. In that case you must register a new expression of interest and receive an invitation to apply before submitting a new application.
Your employer then must give you the form so you can scan and upload it with your application.
When we assess your application, we may need additional supporting documents from your employer to validate information included in the Application for Approval of an Employment Position (Employer Form). Please read the Employer Checklist for a list of possible documents that may be requested.
Once you register an expression of interest under this stream you will be assigned points based on the following factors.
If you are invited to apply, you will be required to submit specific documents to support each scoring factor for which you received points. Scoring factors are not the same as stream criteria. You must meet all criteria for this stream and provide the mandatory documents with your application. Refer to the document checklist for the Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills stream.
The work permit must confer legal status.
The work in the job offer position must have occurred within Ontario.
Based on a Notice of Assessment issued by the Canada Revenue Agency in the last five years.
For Regionalization scoring factors, the regions are defined as follows:
If your application is successful, you will receive the following by email:
Once you have the necessary documentation, you must apply to IRCC for a work permit (if applicable) and permanent residence. Please note, a nomination from the OINP under this stream is subject to the following conditions and/or restrictions:
Ask us a question via webform or by phone from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at:
Use our Stream Selector Tool to identify which OINP stream you may be eligible for.