Labour Market Gatekeepers: Human Resource Management Professionals Defining and Excluding Immigrants in Alberta, Canada

ABSTRACT Despite being admitted to Canada as “the best and the brightest,” immigrants often face underemployment and poverty. Few studies on immigrant labour market integration consider the role of local policy actors such as human resource management (HRM) professionals, who make and influence hiring decisions. Drawing on interviews and Relational Inequality Theory, this paper examines how HRM professionals in Alberta categorically define and evaluate immigrant candidates. Findings reveal that HRM professionals fail to recognize immigrants as legally entitled and preferred workers based on their permanent residency, instead treating them as temporary migrants who are administrative burdens or financial risks. Strategic HRM logics provide non‐racial justifications for exclusion, yet evaluations are guided by cultural fit criteria that serve as proxies for Whiteness. These insights reframe the problem as also a recognition of legal status, showing how immigration categories and cultural racism intersect to reproduce inequality in Canada's labour market.