Canada continued its commitment to inviting skilled migrants to the country by inviting 5,000 Express Entry candidates to apply for Canadian permanent residency.
The invitation round, held on March 18, saw 5,000 Express Entry candidates belonging to the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) program issued invitations to apply (ITAs) for permanent residency in Canada.
Invited applicants in this round of the draw needed to have 449 points on their Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score to successfully receive an ITA.
All the CEC invitees who were issued ITAs in this round of the invitation draw were onshore applicants, as the Canadian government continues its drive to inviting more than 400,000 immigrants to Canada in 2021 and maintaining its target of inviting 1.2 million immigrants by 2023.
This round of the CEC-only invitation round also shows that while international travel remains restricted by border restrictions in place due to the pandemic, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) continues to keep the invitation process running by prioritizing onshore candidates.
This round of the draw is the first CEC-only invitation round since the historic draw held on February 13, when IRCC invited an astounding 27,332 applicants to apply for Canadian PR in a single invitation round.
After the completion of this latest round of the draw, a total of 43,840 skilled migration candidates have been invited to apply for permanent residency in Canada. To put this into perspective, the IRCC had issued only 19,368 ITAs at this stage last year.
Canada recently published its new Immigration Levels Plan, in which the country outlined its target of inviting 1.2 million immigrants by 2023, with more than 400,000 immigrants to be invited by Canada every year for the next three years.
Under this plan, 108,500 candidates from Canada’s Express Entry-managed programs are set to be issued ITAs for Canadian PR by the Canadian government in 2021.
Canada’s Express Entry system is an application management system encompassing three of Canada’s federal skilled migration programs – the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), the Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP) and the Canadian Experience Class (CEC).
