Tim Hortons announced on May 25, 2026, that it will reduce its use of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program and hire up to 10,000 local employees as part of a nationwide expansion.
The coffee chain plans to open 80 new locations and renovate 400 existing sites across Canada.
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The move marks a shift for the company, which had previously relied on the TFW program during pandemic labor shortages.
Now, with rising youth unemployment and a stabilized domestic workforce, Tim Hortons is prioritizing local hiring.
Parent company Restaurant Brands International Inc. confirmed it will stop lobbying the federal government to expand the temporary worker stream.
Tim Hortons currently employs about 4,000 temporary foreign workers, or 3.6% of its 110,000 total staff.
That number has dropped by 50% since 2024.
Duncan Fulton, chief corporate officer of Restaurant Brands, said wages are the same for local and foreign hires.
He added that franchise owners face much less staffing pressure than during the pandemic.
“We have not lobbied the government since last year and we won’t be lobbying them on TFWs any time soon given our commitment to hire locally everywhere possible,” Fulton said.
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Young Canadians aged 15 to 24 make up about 45% of Tim Hortons’ workforce. That demographic faces a national unemployment rate above 14%.
“At the end of the day, our owners would prefer to hire locally almost 100% of the time,” Fulton said.
The chain will still use the TFW program in limited cases to address hiring challenges in remote and rural areas.
“The use of the TFW program amongst owners has gone down by 50% from 2024.
It was not the same as 2021, during the pandemic, where there was a real need for foreign labour,” Fulton said.
Naira Saeed, chief operating officer of Tim Hortons, said suburban and urban labor markets have largely recovered since the acute shortages of 2021-2022.
“I can say that even at the height of the pandemic, when the TFW program cap was 30%, we did not come close to reaching the cap.
The vast majority of our workers are hired locally,” Saeed said.
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The recruitment drive will include national and local job fairs throughout 2026, open to anyone legally authorized to work in Canada.
