Catherine Sas, K.C.This past month heralded the release of the Express Entry Year-End Report for 2015. After being introduced in January of 2015, the department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) provided its findings for the first year of operation of the Express Entry application management system. Express Entry is the new management system for Canada’s economic immigration programs including the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSW, the Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP), the Canadian Economic Class (CEC) and the Provincial Nominee Programs (PNP). Let’s see how 2015 unfolded for the mainstay of Canada’s immigration system!
The Express Entry selection process operates on the basis of a registration system. Applicants register a profile with their personal data including their age, education, work experience and language proficiency in both English and French. Based upon their qualifications they are given a Comprehensive Ranking Score (CRS). In addition to their individual qualifications, an applicant must meet the criteria for one of the three federal programs: FSW, FSTP or CEC. If an applicant is able to meet both the requirements for one of the four programs and also have a high enough CRS score, they will be given an Invitation to Apply (ITA). Last year’s statistics are interesting:
- 191,279 persons registered a profile;
- 88,048 were found not eligible (they didn’t satisfy the criteria for one of the four programs;
- 31,063 were given Invitations to Apply (ITA):
- 12,493 applicants were given an ITA without an LMIA or Provincial Nomination;
- 60,042 applicants remain active candidates for permanent residence;
- 21,651 applications have been submitted for processing;
- 14,048 applications have been approved for permanent residence; and
- 5,301 International students were given an ITA – 22% of the total ITAs issued.
Also noteworthy were the top ten source countries of citizenship of the applicants issued ITAs:
1) India (22.4%), 2) Philippines (12.6%), 3) China (5.9%), 4) United Kingdom (5.8%), 5) Ireland (4.3%), 6) USA (3.4%), 7) Nigeria (2.2%), 8) South Korea (2.1%), 9) France ( 2.0%) and 10) Australia (1.9%).
For the full report please see: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/reports/ee-year-end-2015.asp
Reading statistics is never an engaging process. But a review of the numbers indicate that people are keen to access the Express Entry process, that intake to the program remains strong and that so far the government is keeping on target of its six month processing time. The report cautions that this could change in the future as more applications are processed. International students are also holding their own as qualified applicants for an ITA. Overall the new Express Entry selection system measured up pretty well for it’s first year of operation!
