British Columbia (BC) conducted a Tech Draw on 18th January. They were able to send 91 invites.
The British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP) has BC PNP Tech as of on the stream to invite tech workers for a provincial nomination.
The BC PNP is used to onboard international skills that are in high demand. The program is curated to help settle immigrants by giving them permanent residence if they choose to work and live in the province.
Applicants need to be eligible for British Columbia’s Express Entry and Skills immigration categories; they are managed under the Skills and Immigration Registration System (SIRS).
Skilled Worker and International Graduate subcategories were selected for this draw with a threshold of 80 scores. The applicants who got the invite now have to apply within a month for the nomination.
The BC PNP Tech stream
The program started in 2017. It was incepted as a pilot stream because the province realized its biggest challenge was to find tech skills for its labour market. As the pilot went successful, the province decided to make it a permanent one. It is developed to help business owners/employers to find talent which is not available locally so they can find and search for international talent.
It is considered a fast-track stream that helps students and in-demand talents to immigrate to British Columbia. Applicants necessarily should have a job offer for at least a year to become qualified. Furthermore, they need to register in any of the provincial streams of BC. Also, the job offer should be in any of the eligible professions where there is high demand. There such 29 professions as of now.
In the one-year job offers, there should be at least 120 days left while applying for the BC PNP Tech. Also, the employer should be from the eligible list, and the job should be a regular/full-time one.
Whoever meets the requirements mentioned above, the province sends out invites to them every week. After getting the invite, the applicant needs to complete and submit the applications, which usually gets processed within 2-3 months.
After getting the nomination from the province, the applicant can apply for PR from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) under the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). Since they have the nomination, they get extra 600 points which eventually increases their chances of getting an invite in the future draws for Express Entry.
