Alberta has come up with a fast-track immigration stream for professionals working in the tech sector.
Tyler Shandro, the immigration minister of Canada, made the announcement about the new pathway on 13th January. Alberta had been accepting the applicant’s requests since December last year.
For the basic eligibility, the individual has to make a profile in the Express Entry and meet requirements for the Alberta Express Entry stream.
“Under this new pathway, tech professionals from across Canada and overseas can become permanent residents in as little as six months if they have a job offer in an in-demand tech industry occupation,” Shandro said. “Along with priority application processing, tech professionals will also receive a letter of support from the Government of Alberta if they require a work permit.”
Contrasting to his statement, in 2020, the average processing time remained at nine months.
There are over 3,000 tach companies in Alberta. The data was released by the Alberta Enterprise corp. According to a study, the tech sector has witnessed a growth of around 233% since 2012. However, the province still faces a challenge when it comes to hiring sales and technical pools.
Procedure for fast-track immigration pathway.
After you have proved your eligibility for the federal as well as provincial immigration system, you need to go through three steps for this Provincial Nominee Program (PNP):
1. Create a profile
As we mentioned earlier, the basic requirement is to get into the Express Entry pool. For which you need to check your eligibility for any of the below-mentioned streams:
- Canadian Experience Class (CEC),
- Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), or
- Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP).
If you are eligible for any of the streams mentioned above, you need to fill the form for Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program (AINP). This helps in sending your details about Express Entry and tech jobs in the province.
In order to get consideration from the province, the individual has to be working or should have a job offer in Alberta. Also, the job should be in one of the eligible professions mentioned below:
- 0013 Senior managers – financial, communications, and other business services
- 0112 Human resources managers
- 2172 Database analysts and data administrators
- 0131 Telecommunication carriers manager
- 0211 Engineering managers
- 0213 Computer and information systems managers
- 0512 Managers – publishing, motion pictures, broadcasting, and performing arts
- 0601 Corporate sales managers
- 1123 Professional occupations in advertising, marketing, and public relations
- 1121 Human resources professionals
- 2131 Civil engineers
- 2132 Mechanical engineers
- 2133 Electrical and electronics engineers
- 1223 Human resources and recruitment officers
- 2147 Computer engineers (except software engineers and designers)
- 0212 Architecture and science managers
- 2161 Mathematicians, statisticians, and actuaries
- 2171 Information systems analysts and consultants
- 2173 Software engineers and designers
- 2174 Computer programmers and interactive media developers
- 2175 Web designers and developers
- 2221 Biological technologists and technicians
- 2232 Mechanical engineering technologists and technicians
2. AINP confirms the eligibility of the applicants
The AINP checks your demographic details as well as your job status and defines your eligibility for the stream. If they find you eligible, you will be asked to request a nomination from Alberta. Individuals cannot directly apply, they need this invite, and also it cannot be used for any other streams.
3. Applying
When you get the email from the province, carefully assess all the requirements mentioned. If you willingly or unknowingly present false data, you may be banned for applying for a nomination for up to 5 years.
All the applications completed by invitees go into the common pool, which is picked by AINP for nomination.
If you get the nomination, you have a month to accept the same. This is done using the online profile for Express Entry. That adds 600 points to your Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scores, which effectively guarantees your chance of getting the invite to apply for Canadian permanent residency in the next draw.
