In the initial two draws this year, IRCC has not yet invited PNP applicants in order to make an application to apply for Canadian immigration.
Canada hosted a brand fresh Express Entry draw on January 19, inviting 1,036 applicants who are seeking permanent residency.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) only accepts Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) candidates. To this end, they set the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score cutoff was 745. PNP applicants are given an automatic 600-point increase to their score after they get their nominations and that’s why the score is high.
Every draw for Express Entry until September were only for PNP Candidates only. The most recent date Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates were invited was on September 14th.
In 2022 IRCC is inviting 1,428 PNP applicants through Express Entry. In general, the CRS cut-off has been within 700-800 in the last 10 EE PNP-specific draws. The cut-off for today’s draw was 745, which is lower than the CRS 808 required for the initial draw of the year in January.
FSWP as well as CEC candidates constitute nearly the entire Express Entry pool
At the time of writing the number of Express Entry applicants on the waiting list. The majority of them are eligible to be considered for CEC, the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) and around 20% of them are eligible for the CEC. The numbers are round and the difference is what is the amount of applicants qualified for other programs, such as those of the PNP or CEC. Federal Skilled Trades Program.
IRCC has not been able to invite FSWP applicants in the process of applying for permanent residency until December of 2020. Prior to the pandemic, FSWP candidates were the most frequently invited. Around 45% of all Express Entry invitations went to FSWP applicants in the year 2019. But because FSWP applicants haven’t been able to apply for over an entire year, the application waiting list has gotten full.
The amount of CEC candidates in the pool has drastically grown since September. At present, they comprise more than 20 percent of the pool in comparison to the time when they were approximately 6percent. In June, IRCC was holding huge CEC draws that invited 6,000 people to apply for the position at one time.
A memo from the internal department in September states that IRCC stopped CEC draws to aid in reducing the backlog of applications and bring Express Entry processing back down to six months. In 2020 the Processing time to Express Entry candidates was up to nine months.
While IRCC was able to increase processing to over 45,000 applicants per month towards the final month of the year, the backlog of immigration applications also increased by 21,000 between October between October and December. In the same time frame there was a reduction in the Express Entry backlog went down from an average of 138,000 applications to 119,000. The majority of the improvement was due to a decrease of CEC application backlogs. These decreased from around 48,000 in October to around 25,000 by December. It was also noted that the Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP) backlog also decreased to 931 by October to 805 by December.
The Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) backlog has increased by approximately 4000 applications between the months of October and December, increasing from approximately 51,000 to 55,000. In addition, the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) backlog also increased by approximately 1,000 applications to reach 39,000 by December.
Express Entry application backlog
What is Express Entry?
Express Entry provides the management system that is used for the three Canadian immigration programs including The Canadian Experience Class, the Federal Skilled Worker Program, and the Federal Skilled Trades Program. PNP applicants in the Express Entry pool have already been accepted into one of these programs.
Express Entry employs a system based on points, known as that is called the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) that ranks applicants their profiles. Candidates who score the highest are issued an Invitation to Apply (ITA) and are then eligible to submit an application for permanent residence.
Then the IRCC officer looks over their application and then makes a final decision. Then, IRCC will ask for biometrics, and could schedule an interview or request additional documents.
In the event that the applicant’s application gets accepted, IRCC issues a Confirmation of Permanent Residence (COPR). The permanent residents who are approved will then complete the landing procedure. If they’re outside Canada and want to apply for the pre-arrival service to assist them through the first steps to settle in Canada.
What was their guest list?
This is an hypothetical scenario of someone who might have been awarded an ITA from the latest Express Entry draw.
Saylor aged 34. She holds an undergraduate degree and has worked as a social worker for the past six years. They took the IELTS and got an 7.5 in listening, and an 6.5 for all other skills. Saylor has never studied or worked in Canada. They were in through the Express Entry pool with a CRS score of 333. Saylor was then asked to submit an official nomination for the province and the application was approved. After the provincial nomination, Saylor’s CRS score rose to 933 which was sufficient to earn an ITA in the latest Express Entry draw.
