Canada Immigration – Express Entry 2nd Draw

Candidates with the Provincial Nominations

Canada Immigration 2nd Express Entry draw was held on 19th January 2022. In this draw Canadian Immigration invited 1,036 applicants of Express Entry to apply for Permanent Residency. In the first 20 days of this new year 2022, 1,428 PNP Candidates of Express Entry are invited to apply for Permanent Residence through the two Express Entry Draws. First Draw was held on 5th January, 2022.

The CRS (Comprehensive Ranking System) cutoff score for the invited candidates was 745. If we compare this score with the first draw held on 5th January, the cutoff score was 808. This score seems pretty high, because all the Candidates invited in this draw was actually the PNP Candidates. Means, those applicants who have Provincial Nominations. And having a Provincial Nomination means +600 CRS Score to your Express Entry profile.

If we look back into past few months, Canadian Immigration only invited those Express Entry Candidates who have Provincial Nominations. The other two streams of Canadian Federal Express Entry system are Foreign Skilled Workers Program FSWP and Canadian Experience Class CEC. The last draw for Express Entry Candidates under FSWP was held in December 2020, and for FSWP, the last draw was held on September 14th, 2021. Since then, all draws were held for PNP Express Entry Candidates.

Canadian Experience Class & Foreign Skilled Worker Program

Last year we have seen some Big Express Entry draws by the Canadian Immigration for Canadian Experience Class CEC Candidates. In Feb. 2021 we saw the biggest Express Entry draw inviting more than 27,000 CEC candidates at a time, then in June 2021 6,000 CEC candidates were invited, and in August 2021 3,000 CEC candidates were invited.

As FSWP candidates were not invited since December 2020, now the applications under this pool piled up. Statistics show that by the beginning of this year 2022, Express Entry FSWP pool hit the maximum number of candidates 194,000.

The hold on CEC and FSWP backlogged applications under PNP Streams.

IRCC is in full swing to process the maximum number of applications in coming months.

Canada Immigration is going to resume Express Entry invitations to FSWP and CEC applicants soon. IRCC’s recent memo created speculation on what will be the future of Express Entry Draw specially for Canadian Experience Class and Foreign Skilled Workers Program applications.

Immigration minister will going to announce a proper plan regarding federal immigration in February 2022, which will make things much clear.

Upon its launch in 2015, Express Entry sought to invite the best scoring applicants to apply for PR. Express Entry system was designed to make the Canadian Immigration system more efficient and speedy for more applicants. But, due to pandemic, IRCC focused on the applicants from within Canada, and it created a huge backlog for the Foreign Skilled Workers Program applications.

Initially Comprehensive ranking system CRS was complicated for many applicants, but thanks to Statistics Canada, their frequent reports, stats and surveys made the CRS understandable for many. The increase within the Express Entry backlog was avoidable due to the fact IRCC made the deliberate preference to expedite CEC application’s processing while protecting off on processing FSWP.

This backlog of FSWP applications resulted in less population and economic growth of the country. At this point, Canada is facing the biggest labour shortage across the country with more than 900,000 vacant jobs vacancies in different sectors.

All eyes are on the upcoming announcement from IRCC expected in February for the future immigration related plans and policies.