IRCC Wants 55,000 Landings Through Express Entry in 2022
Earlier this week, 829 Express Entry candidates were invited to apply for permanent residence. All of the candidates had previously received a nomination from a Provincial Nominee Program and had a CRS score of at least 772. Although this score appears relatively high, candidates get an automatic 600 points added to their score after receiving a provincial nomination. In the previous round, the IRCC invited candidates with scores of at least 782.
Prior to the pandemic, the IRCC rarely held PNP-only draws. Instead, they were more likely to invite the highest-scoring candidates to apply for immigration, no matter what program they were eligible for. Now, the IRCC is more focused on inviting PNP and CEC candidates to help support the provincial immigration goals.
During the early stages of COVID, IRCC aimed to admit a record-high number of immigrants in a single year by inviting CEC candidates. This was because most CEC candidates were already in Canada, so travel restrictions did not apply to them. Using this strategy, the government was able to land a record number of permanent residents last year.
Federal Skilled Worker Program Still on Hold?
Since the IRCC was focused on changing the residency status of those already in the country, other applicants including Express Entry candidates, were forced to wait. This resulted in the IRCC pausing FSWP invitations in 2020, and CEC invitations in 2021.
Since its launch in 1967, the FSWP was the primary source of foreign skilled immigrants in Canada until the IRCC decided to focus on inviting and processing CEC candidates.
While prioritizing applications was important to prevent the backlog, it created an unforeseen problem with employment- there are a record-number of job vacancies with no one to fill them.
Although this policy change has reduced foreign skilled immigration to Canada, the IRCC is looking to land 55,000 permanent residents through Express Entry this year.
As it stands, Express Entry is the main pathway for new economic class immigrants. By 2024 the IRCC should be back to its 110,000 Express Entry immigrants per year goal.
What Is Express Entry?
Express Entry is the application management system used for Canada’s most popular immigration programs: Canadian Experience Class, Federal Skilled Worker Program, and the Federal Skilled Trades Program. The Provincial Nominee Program candidates are also in the Express Entry within the pool because they have previously qualified for one of these programs. To determine who is eligible for an invitation for permanent residency, Express Entry uses a point system which ranks the candidates’ profiles.
