Canada resumes express entry applications for permanent residence
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Canada will resume in early July the process of “Express Entry” applications for permanent residence to fill “hundreds of thousands of vacant positions” in all sectors across its provinces to stabilise and grow recovery from the pandemic.
The ‘Express Entry’ programme is a points-based system through which skilled workers in Canada and abroad are invited to apply for permanent residency if they meet certain thresholds in work experience, education and language skills.
“Immigration is more important than ever to fuel Canada’s economy, as our strong economic growth is now outpacing our ability to find and keep workers. Canada is a top destination for global talent.
“We need to use this fact to ensure that businesses and employers have access to the skilled workers they need to grow and succeed,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRC) Minister Sean Fraser said in a statement.
He announced that Express Entry draws “will soon resume and that invitations for candidates to apply for permanent residence will begin in early July.”
Fraser also announced a new temporary policy that will extend work permits for recent international graduates.
Post-graduate work permit
Graduates with post-graduation work permit expiring between January and December 2022 will qualify for an additional open work permit of up to 18 months.
The process will start in the summer of 2022.
Other policy changes taking effect this summer include:
- Applicants will no longer be required to remain in Canada while their application is being processed.
- Applicants who apply for an open work permit while waiting for their permanent residence application to be finalized will be able to get work permits valid until the end of 2024.
- This will ensure that all permanent residence applications will be finalized before applicants will need to apply to extend their temporary status again.
- To support family reunification, immediate family members who are outside Canada and who were included in a principal applicant’s permanent residence application will be eligible for their own open work permit.
“These measures support the government’s broader effort to ensure Canadian employers have the workers they need while addressing our labour shortage,” the statement stressed.
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Process within 6 months
Fraser also explained that:
Travel restrictions throughout most of 2020 and 2021 delayed the processing of overseas applications, which led to an increase in the size of the processing inventory.
To manage this inventory, we temporarily paused invitations to apply under the federal high-skilled streams, including the Canadian experience class, federal skilled worker class and federal skilled trades class.
Invitations to apply will resume in early July, and the vast majority of new applications will be processed within the six-month service standard.
As a result of the temporary pause, the federal high-skilled processing inventory has been cut by more than half, decreasing from approximately 111,900 people in September 2021 to just 48,000 people by March 2022.
This inventory will be further reduced by July 2022, allowing us to return to the service standards that our clients expect.
A new temporary policy that will give recent international graduates with expiring temporary status an opportunity to stay in Canada longer, so that they can continue to gain work experience and have a better chance at qualifying for permanent residency.
Starting in summer 2022, former international students who are in Canada and have a post-graduation work permit expiring between January and December 2022 will qualify for an additional open work permit of up to 18 months.
These talented and skilled international graduates play a vital role in addressing our labour shortage, and those nearing the end of their post-graduation work permit are already well-integrated into Canada’s labour market and work in key industries across the country.
Transition to permanent residence
Tens of thousands are able to successfully transition to permanent residence each year, including more than 157,000 former students who became permanent residents in 2021, with more than 88,000 of them transitioning directly from a post-graduation work permit to permanent status.
This additional open work permit will allow applicants to continue contributing to the Canadian economy, helping address our labour shortage while gaining valuable work experience and preparing their Express Entry profiles.
To help bring even more skilled workers quickly to Canada, we have doubled the number of permanent residence decisions made in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the same time period in 2021.
From January 1, 2022 to March 31, 2022, we have made over 156,000 final decisions on permanent residence applications and, through these efforts, Canada welcomed over 113,000 new permanent residents in the first quarter of 2022.
We have also processed more than 100,000 work permit applications in the first quarter of 2022, nearly doubling the number processed over the same time period in 2021.
There are new measures for those who applied for permanent residence through the temporary resident to permanent resident pathway last year.
The limited-time pathway was launched in 2021 to invite a broad range of individuals already working in Canada to apply to stay permanently. While closed to new applications since November 2021, the processing of applications will continue for some time.
Quick facts
- Express Entry is Canada’s flagship application management system for those seeking to immigrate permanently through the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Federal Skilled Trades Program, the Canadian experience class and a portion of the Provincial Nominee Program.
- Through Express Entry, candidates submit profiles that are ranked, and periodically, applicants with the highest ranking points are invited to apply for permanent residence.
- About 95,000 post-graduation work permits expire between January 31 and December 31, 2022.
- While many former students with expiring work permits have already transitioned to permanent residence, applied for permanent residence or successfully applied for a different type of work permit, we anticipate as many as 50,000 applicants could benefit from this temporary measure.
