The Mexican government announced on Thursday that it expects to exceed 26,000 agricultural workers in Canada throughout 2023 through the Temporary Agricultural Workers Program (PTAT), including 153 recently displaced.

“Today, 153 agricultural workers traveled to Canada, adding to the more than 2,500 who have arrived in recent days. For the 2023 season, it should reach the figure of 26,000 workers hired by more than 2,000 companies,” the labor and foreign relations secretariats said in a joint statement.

The Undersecretary of Employment and Labor Mobility of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, Marath Bolaños López, highlighted the efforts made by day laborers to improve the previous season and wished them to return with “the satisfaction of having fulfilled their duty”.

He also highlighted the “willingness and commitment” of employers, who represent more than 2,000 Canadian companies that participate in the PTAT and have requested nearly 17,000 workers for this season.

In addition, Bolaños López highlighted the work done by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to improve the working conditions of Mexicans in Canada so that they have access to “more and better jobs”.

Along the same lines, Mexico’s Ambassador to Canada, Carlos Joaquín González, supported the government’s commitment to respecting and guaranteeing workers’ rights.

“We are opening the doors of the embassy for their human rights to be respected and for them to return home safely,” he said.

The director general of consular protection and strategic planning, Vanessa Calva Ruiz, added that they were working to inform day laborers of their rights and to support them in case they needed advice.

Of the 153 workers who traveled this Thursday, 15 are from the state of Guanajuato, 14 from the state of Mexico, 13 from Veracruz, 12 from Tlaxcala and Michoacán, 11 from Morelos and 10 from Puebla.

In addition, the statement adds, 21 other states are reporting between one and seven workers.

The PTAT has been a “model of orderly, regular and safe labor mobility” for 49 years, continued the head of the National Employment Service (SNE), Rodrigo Ramírez.

At the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City earlier this year, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed to strengthen working conditions for Mexican workers in Canada.