Canada breaks records as it set its eyes for the immigration goal of 401,000 immigrants.
This quarter of the year 2021 has been since the launch of the Express Entry program in 2015.
A total of 44124 candidates has been invited in the first quarter of 2021. This has been a record-breaking quarter since the launch of the Express Entry program.
Express Entry is the main immigration pathway for Canada to welcome economic class immigrants. It comprises a two-step procedure. In the first step, the applicants must be eligible to apply in one of the three skilled worker programs managed by the Express Entry program. Eligible candidates then upload their profiles on the Canadian Government’s website to obtain a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score based on factors like age, education, language proficiency, and working experience.
In the next step, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) holds draws inviting applicants to apply for a Permanent Residency (PR) visa. IRCC holds these draws within the time span of every two weeks. But this trend has changed due to this coronavirus pandemic. Now a new approach has been seen where IRCC is targeting every candidate that is currently residing in Canada. As of now, program-specific draws are the new trend now.
Program-specific draws
IRCC has been holding Express Entry draw draws throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period despite the travel restrictions being imposed since March 2020.
IRCC has now shifted to program-specific draws to consider applicants who have applied in the Express Entry program before the pandemic.
In this quarter of 2021, IRCC has been hanging around two types of draw i.e. Canadian Experience Class (CEC) draws and Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) Express Entry draws. There were 10 total draws that were held during this quarter. 6 of them were PNP draws and 4 were CEC draws. The total number of invitations has reached 44124, out of this 41,708 applicants were invited through CEC and 2416 applicants were invited through the PNP program.
The exceptional draw resulted due to the pandemic
In the first quarter of the year 2020, Canada sent invitations to 22,600 candidates to apply for permanent residence in Canada. This number is doubled in this quarter as IRCC is looking to make up for the year 2020. Before the pandemic, IRCC aimed to welcome 341,000 new immigrants on Canadian soil but the year 2020 turned out to be the weakest year for Canada Immigration since 1998.
To compensate, IRCC, therefore, announced ambitious immigration levels targets in the Canadian Immigration history.
The Immigration Level targets for the year 2021 were set to be 401,000 new applicants with the Express Entry accounting for one-fourth of the total new arrivals.
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