IRCC has only invited PNP candidates to apply for Canadian immigration in the first two draws of the year.
On January 19, Canada hosted a fresh Express Entry lottery, inviting 1,036 immigrants to apply for permanent residency.
Only candidates from the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) were invited by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). As a result, the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) limit was set at 745. When PNP candidates receive their nomination, their score is automatically increased by 600 points, which is why the score appears to be high.
Since September, all Express Entry draws have been for PNP candidates only. The last time candidates for the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) were invited was on September 14.
IRCC has invited 1,428 PNP candidates for Express Entry so far in 2022. During the last 10 PNP-specific EE draws, the CRS cut-off has often been in the 700-800 range. The 745 CRS requirement for today’s draw was lower than the 808 CRS required for this year’s first draw on January 5
Source: https://www.cicnews.com/2022/01/express-entry-canada-breaks-pnp-draw-record-again-0121178.html
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Source: https://www.cicnews.com/2022/01/express-entry-canada-breaks-pnp-draw-record-again-0121178.html
FSWP and CEC candidates make up nearly the whole Express Entry pool.
There are around 194,000 Express Entry candidates in the pool as of January 4th. Approximately 80% of these candidates qualify for the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), while approximately 20% qualify for the CEC. The gap between these numbers equals the number of candidates eligible for other programmes such as the PNP and the Federal Skilled Trades Program.
Since December 2020, the IRCC has not invited FSWP candidates to apply for permanent residency. FSWP candidates were by far the most frequently invited prior to the epidemic. In 2019, FSWP candidates received almost 45 percent of all Express Entry invites. However, the pool has grown due to the fact that FSWP candidates have not been able to apply for more than a year.
Since September, the number of CEC applicants in the pool has risen considerably. They now account for about 20% of the pool, compared to around 6% six months ago. That was in June, when IRCC held big CEC drawings, allowing up to 6,000 people to apply at once.
According to an internal memo from September, IRCC suspended CEC draws in order to help minimise application backlogs and return Express Entry processing to six months. In 2020, Express Entry candidates should expect to wait up to nine months for their applications to be processed.
Despite IRCC’s ability to handle over 45,000 applications per month by the end of the year, the backlog of immigration petitions grew by 21,000 applications between October and December. During that time, the Express Entry backlog decreased from 138,000 to 119,000 applications. The majority of the progress was due to a decrease in CEC application backlogs, which dropped from around 48,000 in October to 25,000 in December. The backlog in the Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP) decreased from 931 in October to 805 in December.
Between October and December, the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) backlog climbed by nearly 4,000 applications, from over 51,000 to almost 55,000. In December, the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) backlog grew by nearly 1,000 applications to 39,000.
Source: https://www.cicnews.com/2022/01/express-entry-canada-breaks-pnp-draw-record-again-0121178.htm
