As per official reports, all the programs under the Express Entry are set to resume in July, and it is being estimated that the figures of the invitations will be equal in number to those existing before the pandemic arrived.
The number of invitations each round was edited, but on the whole, IRCC’s memo dictated that the size of the draw would remain compatible with the average pre-pandemic invitations.
3,400 to 4,500 program draws were calculated before March 18, 2020, and 3,200 to 3,900 program draws were calculated in 2019.
As per the IRCC’s memo of March 28, it is being advised to pause the application process until June to give way to the new application process in a span of six months.
The IRCC can easily meet the admission targets for 2022 with the current inventory applications of the Express Entry system.
It is vital to meet the 2023 invitation targets by resuming the invitation rounds between July and September.
Pandemic’s impact on Express Entry
The pre-pandemic era observed Express Entry draws taking place under all programs every two weeks, but ever since the pandemic hit the globe, program-specific draws began to be conducted on occasions.
The pandemic caused several restrictions on travel yet IRCC managed to conduct draws to meet the record-breaking immigration targets. Canadian Experience Class was the least impacted by the pandemic as travel restrictions didn’t apply to it as much as they did to the other programs. Therefore, IRCC continued with the draws under CEC.
The federal government worked in favor of supporting the immigration goals of the provinces due to which the PNP candidates were invited. The FSWP candidates were not included in the draws because the Federal Skilled Workers Program was under travel restrictions with most of its candidates overseas and couldn’t land in Canada.
IRCC briefly resumed the FSWP draws in July 2020 but this was stopped in December 2020. Since then, not a single FSWP draw has been conducted.
Temporary Residence to Permanent Residence was an initiative by the Canadian government to welcome 90,000 new permanent residents who had been staying in Canada.
This was an effort to balance and manage the Express Entry backlog that existed for the programs associated with it.
2021 witnessed a blockage in the CEC applications because IRCC wasn’t able to deliver processing 80 percent of the applications within 6 months. Refraining from sending any invitations to apply, IRCC managed to prioritize the backlog of applications. Consequently, IRCC was able to reduce the backlog with 50,000 applications from February to September.
Sean Frazer, the immigration minister, declared that the FSWP and CEC draw will be resuming in the early part of July. The processing time set by the Express Entry will be reset to 6 months period.
