Determine your eligibility—Hiring a live-in caregiver

As an employer, you must meet certain requirements before you can hire a foreign live-in caregiver.

To hire a live-in caregiver, you must:

• have made a sufficient effort to first fill your position with a Canadian, a permanent resident or a foreign worker already in Canada;
• have sufficient income to pay a live-in caregiver;
• provide acceptable accommodation in your home;
• make a job offer that has primary caregiving duties for a child or an elderly or disabled person (a job offer with the primary duties of a housecleaner, for example, is not acceptable under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), but could be appropriate under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program); and
• submit an application for a Labour Market Opinion (LMO) with the employment contract to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada/Service Canada (HRSDC/SC).

It is important that you visit HRSDC’s website to obtain complete information concerning the hiring of a live-in caregiver.

Caregivers will be carefully screened by a Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) visa officer before they enter Canada. They must meet the eligibility requirements of the Live-in Caregiver Program. These include:

• the successful completion of the equivalent of a Canadian secondary school
• at least six months of full-time classroom training or at least one year of work experience as a caregiver or in a related field or occupation within the last three years, including at least six months of continuous employment with one employer
• the ability to speak, read and understand English or French, so that they can function on their own in an unsupervised setting
• the passing of medical, security and criminal clearances
• the signed written employment contract with an employer in Canada

The written employment contract will ensure there is a fair working arrangement between you and your employee. The employment contract must demonstrate that the LCP requirements are met by including a description of:

• mandatory employer-paid benefits, including:
  • transportation to Canada from the live-in caregiver’s country of permanent residence or the country of habitual residence to the location of work in Canada
  • medical insurance coverage provided from the date of the live-in caregiver’s arrival until he or she is eligible for provincial health insurance
  • workplace safety insurance coverage for the duration of employment
  • all recruitment fees, including any amount payable to a third-party recruiter or agents hired by the employer that would otherwise have been charged to the live in caregiver
• job duties
• hours of work
• wages
• accommodation arrangements (including room and board)
• holiday and sick leave entitlements
• termination and resignation terms

A contract template along with a guide for completion is provided below. Your contract does not have to look exactly like this, but it must contain all the information and clauses indicated as mandatory.

The use of an alternate format for the contract may delay the processing of the LMO application as HRSDC and SC officers will need to determine if the contract complies with LCP requirements and contains all mandatory clauses.

• Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP): Contract Template
• Guide for Completion of Employment Contract Template

The contract template is different for the province of Quebec and is available on the ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés culturelles (Quebec Immigration) website.

You may be asked to show that you can provide the wages, benefits and working conditions required by provincial or territorial labour laws.