Hiring Live-In Caregivers from overseas typically takes approximately 4-6 months from start to finish. There are variations depending on the country where the caregivers are located or where they are filing their visa applications. Visa processing is fairly predictable but occasional delays happen in the processing of visas. If you are expecting a child, we recommend the start of the search for a caregiver in the first trimester.
EMC Caregivers deal exclusively with candidates eligible under the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP). Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and Human Resources & Skills Development Canada (Service Canada) created the program to address the chronic shortage of professional caregivers to work in Canada. Caregivers are individuals who are qualified to work without supervision in a private household providing care for children, elderly persons or people who have disabilities, and the program grants work visas to qualified candidates looking to work in Canada. The caregiver in this program has to live in the employer's house.
All foreign Live-In Caregivers coming to Canada must meet the following requirements:
EMC Caregivers will guide you to complete and fill out the forms and prepare all the necessary paperwork for filing at Service Canada. All families will be consulted throughout the application process. For general information about the program and how to go about hiring a Live-In Caregiver, please visit the following websites: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/caregiver/index.asp and http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/workplaceskills/foreign_workers/lcpdir/lcpone.shtml
Employers even as households are required to obtain a business number through Canada Revenue Agency. This is a simple process that can be completed online (see useful links). Employers must comply with all provincial labour laws and must remit payroll deductions such as Provincial and Federal income taxes, Employment Insurance (EI), Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Workers Compensation (WCB). You are also required to provide your caregiver with a pay stub outlining all of the deductions. You must also arrange to pick up your caregiver from the airport when she arrives in Canada.
You must be a Canadian citizen or Permanent Resident. Most foreign professionals in Canada on work visas also qualify. You must have a full-time job. Service Canada requires proof that you have advertised locally for a caregiver but have been unable to find a suitable candidate. We will tell you exactly how and where you need to advertise. You must also provide a separate room with a lock on the door for your caregiver. You must abide by Canadian labour laws and treat your caregiver well! A caregiver does not have to remain with one employer once she is in Canada. We will immediately remove a caregiver from a client’s home if there is evidence of abuse.
The total service fee payable to EMC Caregivers is C$1,600.00 plus HST per caregiver. Once you confirm to proceed and have selected your caregiver, a C$900.00 down payment plus HST is required to start processing the documents at Service Canada. The balance of C$700.00 plus HST is payable upon the arrival of the caregiver. There is no fee to register with us. You may interview candidates without obligation and we will arrange telephone or webcam interview appointments upon request. You only pay the fee if you decide to hire one of our caregivers.
Some employment agencies in Canada do not ask for fees from employers but charge overseas caregivers extremely high fees. Since most of these women are not well-off, they are obliged to borrow heavily for a chance to work abroad. Our recruitment partners charge the caregivers reasonable rates for the service provided to them and the necessary assistance and support related to their employment and visa applications. Our recruitment record and satisfactory service to candidates have generated a reputation that allows us to get the first pick of the best caregivers. That is what our clients pay for, and we can definitely assure that they are getting the best.
Absolutely not. In the unlikely event your selected caregiver is not granted a work permit, we will give you a full refund, unless you want to proceed with a replacement. This is highly unlikely as we only represent fully qualified and screened applicants with the most experience and the best English skills. We require all our caregivers to have their university/college transcripts validated AND we also do cross-checking and verification before we include them in our database. We do not represent caregivers that are unlikely to make it through the visa application and interview process, as this would be a tremendous waste of our and our clients' time.
As with any employee in Canada, you may terminate their employment at any time. Employers are obliged to follow the Provincial Labour Code in terminating an employee. The contract we provide stipulates two weeks written notice from either party, or you can pay your caregiver two weeks salary, in lieu of a notice.
EMC Caregivers offer a one free replacement policy, where fees paid to EMC are applied to the replacement, when the termination or replacement need does not emanate from employer's wrongdoing. If things do not work out in the first three months we will replace your caregiver free of charge. This guarantee applies only if the caregiver’s performance has been unsatisfactory. If the change request emanates from reasons unrelated to the caregiver performance, the offer of a free replacement within the first three months will not apply. If you let your caregiver go for reasons unrelated to her performance we will help her find a new job.
There is no restriction on the length of time that your selected caregiver can work for you. However, participants in the Live-In Caregiver Program are required to renew their work permits before expiry.
Effective April 01, 2010, employers are required to pay for the transportation costs to bring their caregivers to Canada. We can help you source out cheaper transportation costs and make arrangements that will guarantee that these costs you are shouldering are protected.
If you have two children in daycare, you are likely paying MORE than the cost of a live-in caregiver, when you consider all the other costs and limitations related to daycare. Restrictive hours, wait lists, drop off and pick up challenges , scrambling for home sitters during unexpected overtime or important appointments. Your home is definitely safer especially if your children have severe allergies and they would receive more individual attention unlike in daycare. And don’t forget that caregivers can do light housework too like cooking, laundry, pet care, and house cleaning that would allow you to have better quality time for your children when you get home from work!
Having a live-in caregiver makes your life much easier! There is no morning rush to daycare and your child enjoys undivided attention in a safe environment. Preschoolers who stay home get sick less often than kids in a group setting. If your school-aged child gets sick you have a reliable person on hand to take care of things until you get home from work. Having a live-in caregiver also makes it easy to pop out to dinner or a movie at a moment’s notice - not to mention the help with housework. That means more quality time with your children.
This is a common concern for a lot of Canadian parents, especially new mothers who have mixed feelings about returning to work, but children always gravitate toward their parents regardless of who they spend time with during the day. It is beneficial for a child to form strong bonds with as many adults as possible. Another warm and loving relationship provided by the caregiver will boost your child’s social development as well as add sense of security.
Most Canadians were not raised with live-in helpers and are often initially uncomfortable with the thought of a caregiver living in their home. Those concerns will quickly disappear once your caregiver moves in. Our caregivers are educated professionals who understand a family or couple will often need some privacy and would not take it negatively. We train our caregivers to be adept at sensing this and we encourage also employers to clearly spell out their “house rules” on giving space and privacy to the family. You and your caregivers will develop a household routine and warming up with the family within a few weeks.
Yes, we have a strong background and ability to place qualified caregivers for the elderly, persons with disabilities and special needs children, who have the suitable educational background, usually nursing degrees, and with exceptional references. We have been deploying nurses as Personal Care Workers and Registered Nurses to nursing homes. We can also do customized placements for households wanting specific skill sets from caregivers such as driving or executive household management experience.
Consider how much you will be paying for senior or disabled care centers, assisted living facilities or nursing homes. Consider also the costly live-out sitters that come to your house, which changes from time to time. Now look at the comfort of being cared for at home as against the emotional trauma of leaving their cherished homes while being cared for outside to cope with whatever medical condition, physical or mental illnesses they are suffering from. Live-In Caregivers will not only do personal care but also do light housework, errands and respite for family caregivers.
The salary calculation can be done by entering the wage per hour rate into Canada Revenue Agency's online payroll calculator which will tell you exactly how much the employer has to pay each month including CPP and EI share. The link for the CRA payroll calculator is: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/esrvc-srvce/tx/bsnss/pdoc-eng.html
The cost for employing a caregiver varies from province to province. Salary usually starts at the minimum wage, although we encourage employers to give more for highly qualified caregivers. The link for getting updated information on the current and forthcoming minimum wages is: http://srv116.services.gc.ca/dimt-wid/sm-mw/rpt1.aspx?lang=eng Visit this link to get other information such as minimum number of hours required, allowable deductions for room and board, and other related matters: http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/workplaceskills/foreign_workers/advertreq/wageadreq.shtml
Majority of our applicants/candidates are Filipinos working in Saudi Arabia, where the source of qualified candidates is abundant. We are one of the very few organizations that have an actual recruitment office in Saudi Arabia. We do have a well-established recruitment network that allows us flexibility on sourcing qualified candidates from other countries as well. We do not recruit Filipinos currently staying in the Philippines because of long visa processing times for applications filed in the Philippines.
The basic requirement that we look for initially from our caregivers is the possession of instinctive loving and caring personality combined with a responsible character. We do structured behavioral interviews to extract the presence of such qualities. The other screening factors are their English skills and educational credentials as they have to comply with the program requirement. We do background checks on the veracity of their references and work performance. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) also do their credential and language skill assessment of the caregiver when they apply for visa, and let them undergo a thorough medical (health) and security (police record) check
