So my neighbour is part of a family of four who moved here a few years ago. We’re on friendly terms and talk fairly often. A while back, he mentioned that his family has been struggling to find a domestic home support worker and that it’s been hard to get any “good” responses through the official government Job Bank.
He also told me he was in the middle of applying for permission to hire a foreign worker through one of those federal programmes where you have to show you couldn’t find anyone locally first. He said he was hoping to bring someone over from his home country because it would be easier for his family in terms of language and familiarity.
When I saw his job posting on the government Job Bank, I figured I’d help by sharing it on my Facebook and a couple of local community groups. In my mind, more visibility = better chance of finding someone. If he found someone local, great. If not, at least it would show he genuinely tried.
After I shared it, he started getting way more applications. He complained to me that a lot of them were “bogus,” that people were just applying for the sake of applying, and that now he had to spend a ton of time sorting through them. I didn’t look at any of the applications myself, this is just what he told me.
Fast forward to now: his application to hire a foreign worker was denied. The reason given was that he received domestic applications and therefore didn’t meet the requirement of proving he couldn’t fill the role locally. He says that before I shared the posting, hardly anyone applied, and now the extra attention made it look like there was local interest in the job, even if he personally felt none of the applicants were suitable.
He’s really upset with me and says I interfered with a federal process I don’t understand and basically tanked his chances of getting approval. He also said that I knew he was hoping to hire someone from his home country and that by boosting the posting, I undermined that.
From my perspective, I was just trying to help. The whole point of that system is to try to hire locally first, and the posting was public anyway. I didn’t think sharing a public job listing could backfire like this, or that more applications (even if he didn’t like them) could actually count against him.
Now things are awkward between us, and he’s blaming me for the delay and extra stress.
AITA here, or was I just trying to be helpful and it went sideways?
Canadian? Temporary foreign worker programme? Yeah, dude was trying to underpay this hire.
I’m gonna say NTA.
The Job posting in Job Bank is a step on the LMIA process, so definitely the neighbour was trying to bend the rules to try to get a person from his country to work at his home instead of hiring locally in Canada.
And likely hire a relative he could then underpay. Nta.
NTA, those programs are in place for a reason. You don’t get to move to another nation and then try to circumvent the system there for a reason to your liking. He’s TA for trying to defraud the system.
NTA. You didn’t share any private information, you just blew up this guy’s attempt to hire someone from his home country.
NTA sounds like he was trying to skirt the law here. And had no intention of actually trying to hire locally.
I’m not anti immigration or anything but people/companies absolutely abuse the shit out of this process to take advantage of foreign workers.
I mean, the reason to be pro immigration is to make it easier for people to move where they want to go without having to rely on exploitative scams…
NTA. They are clearly trying to scam the system.
I’m surprised at the number of people saying you should have asked before sharing a **public** job posting.
You are free to share any public job posting that you wish, whether the person posting it wants you to or not.
I also don’t believe he’s having great difficulty finding a domestic home support worker locally.
I think it was obvious enough that he didn’t **want** local applications, but that doesn’t mean you’re TA for sharing the posting.
Public is the key word here!!!! He posted bare minimum so he could get what he wanted.
NTA.
You shared a public job posting. That’s not interference — that’s literally what public postings are for.
If the program requires him to genuinely try to hire locally first, then more local applications actually show that the process worked. The government’s whole point is to see whether there are domestic candidates available. If there were applicants, even ones he didn’t personally like, that weakens his case — but that’s about the program’s criteria, not about you.
It sounds like he wasn’t really hoping to hire locally. He was hoping to meet the minimum requirement so he could bring someone from his home country. That’s his plan, but it’s not your responsibility to protect or manage that strategy.
NTA it was a public posting.
NTA – He was trying to game the system. Glad he’s getting fucked.
NTA
He wanted to get one from his home country and was trying to subvert the process