She's a reporter, of course she's looking for people to interview.
Jennifer, you can search this board for "laid off" and I am sure you'll find some posts from immigrants who've been laid off. Were they laid off because they were immigrants, probably not. Times are tough all over.
The thing that sucks for the temporary foreign workers especially is that they pay into EI but actually getting EI is hit and miss. Many have been denied benefits based on that they are not able to take any job that comes along because their work permit is tied to their employer.
If they are low skilled workers, they are protected under most provinces labour standards and their employer has to take responsibility for providing them with a job or a ticket home but for skilled temporary workers, there is no such thing. There was actually a post here a few months ago where a couple had come on the husbands work permit and he never even started working, laid off before he started actually and these people were sitting in Canada with no income, eating up their savings and his employer was giving them different dates for when he might be able to start working, mostly months from now.
For PR's it's not so bad, they have the same opportunity as any Canadian to find another job. For TFW's, it's not that simple. Getting laid off means looking for another employer who will apply for their labour market opinion so they can get their work permit changed. Even if they find one, that doesn't mean that the labour market opinion will be granted. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to figure out if they should stay in Canada and eat up their savings or if they should fork out a money for the move back home.
