Express Entry Draws Resuming in July

In an event held in New Brunswick on April 22, 2022 , the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC), announced that Express Entry draws are resuming in early July 2022. To be specific, these draws to invite federal high-skilled candidates to apply for Canadian permanent residence includes the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) class, Federal Skilled Trades (FST) class and the Canadian Experience Class (CEC). You can read the official article on the IRCC website.

“With the economy growing faster than employers can hire new workers, Canada needs to look at every option so that we have the skills and labour needed to fuel our growth. Immigration will be crucial to easing our labour shortage, and these measures aim to address pressing needs in all sectors across the country, while providing more opportunities for recent graduates and other applicants to build their lives in Canada and continue contributing to our short-term recovery and long-term prosperity.”

– The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship of Canada

Background

This announcement comes after a long pause made by IRCC during the pandemic that involved the Express Entry draws that affected the above mentioned classes. Since December 23, 2020, there has been no all-program draws, which would include FSW candidates in the pool. On that last draw, IRCC issued 5,000 Invitations to Apply (ITAs). In the same vein, the last draw for CEC candidates took place on September 14, 2021 with 2,000 ITAs issued. For FST candidates, it has been since August 6, 2020 that this category is not invited to apply for permanent residence.

Processing Inventory

The minister clarified today that this measure to pause draws in those classes was taken at a time when travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic delayed overseas application processing. As a consequence, there was a large backlog of applications which impacted applicants and their families. Approximately 111,900 people from September 2021 where waiting for their applications to be processed. Fortunately, as of March 2022 this processing inventory went down to 48,000 people. Minister Fraser stated that the institution intends to further reduce the backlog by July 2022.

! If you are planing to become a candidate for the Express Entry pool and are thinking on getting help, start by filling our contact form to proceed with a consultation with our immigration professionals. We will arrange a meeting and determine your eligibility for Canadian immigration.

Selecting candidates to immigrate to Canada originates from a set of immigration instructions from the minister and the established immigration levels set by the federal government. With the Express Entry system, an online database of eligible candidates, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has been able to invite top-ranking individuals, including French-speaking candidates, to apply for permanent residence.

In recent years, there has been an increase in invited French-speaking applicants wanting to immigrate to provinces outside of Quebec. Despite this, Canada still needs to reach its target of 4.4% French-speaking immigration admissions by the year 2023.

On October 27, 2020, the Canadian minister of IRCC, the honourable Marco E. L. Mendicino, P.C., M.P., announced changes in the points awarded to French-speaking Express Entry candidates. That is, French speakers and bilingual candidates will gain more points for their language ability. In short, the change will see an increase from 15 to 25 points for candidates that speak French and from 30 to 50 points for those that are bilingual (English-French). For the complete news release go to the IRCC website.

This is great news for candidates that have strong French speaking skills who are interested in immigrating to Canada. With this announcement, it is likely that admissions of French speakers outside of Quebec will continue to increase, helping Canada achieve that goal.

It is important to note that Quebec establishes its own immigration levels as per the Canada-Quebec Accord. For this reason, the target mentioned refers to admissions outside of Quebec.

Go to News for more immigration updates.