Measures To Support Canada’s Economic Growth And Address The Labour Market Shortage.

The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Mr. Sean Fraser, announced today new measures to address the labour shortage Canada has been facing since the beginning of the travel restrictions in 2020 and the delay of the overseas processing times in 2021.

The Minister declared[1], “With the economy growing faster than employers can hire new workers, Canada needs to look at every option so that we have the skills and labour needed to fuel our growth”.

Aiming to manage the high inventory, IRCC paused the invitations to apply under the federal skilled streams Canadian Experience Class (CEC), Federal Skilled Worker (FSW), and Federal Skilled Trades (FST), causing the federal skilled inventory to decrease from 111,900 in September of 2021 to 48,000 people in March of 2022.

The good news is the invitations to apply under these streams through Express Entry will finally resume in “early July” and IRCC intends to process the majority of the new applications within the 6-month service standard.

See below the promising TEMPORARY POLICIES that were announced today to enter in force this summer and who will benefit from them:

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

Starting in summer 2022, former students who have a Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) that expires between January and December 2022 will be able to extend their open work permit for up to eighteen (18) months.

This policy will benefit about 95,000 post-graduation work permit holders who will have their permits expired within this period.

Canada’s goal with this policy change is to retain talented and skilled International Students that are already integrated into the Canadian labour market to address the labour shortage across the country.

It is essential to mention that this additional extended period of an Open Work Permit will also increase the chances of the interested, talented former students to transition to permanent residence successfully.

Compared with the same period of 2021, in the first quarter of 2022, IRCC has doubled the number of Permanent Resident application decisions welcoming more than 113.000 new permanent residents into Canada.

FOREIGN NATIONALS IN CANADA AS VISITORS

Since August 2020, foreign nationals with visitor status were authorized to apply for an “employer-specific” work permit from inside Canada, and this temporary policy is now extended to February 28, 2023.

EXTENDED PERIOD OF WORK PERMIT FOR PERMANENT RESIDENCE APPLICANTS UNDER THE TR TO PR PATHWAY.

Applicants who are waiting for a decision on their TR to PR (Permanent Residence) application and applying for an open work permit will now be able to extend their work permit validity until December 2024, ensuring that applicants have a valid work permit until the end of their Permanent Residence process. Also applicants will not need to remain in Canada during the process of their applications.

Family members that are still outside Canada but were included in the principal applicant’s Permanent Residence application will be eligible to apply for an open Work Permit to support family reunification.

Ultimately, Canada intends to restore standard Express Entry processing time to retain talented workers and bolster economic growth.

While more details will clarify how these policy changes will be implemented, we can expect a high volume of new applications.

Therefore, persons interested in staying in or coming to Canada as temporary or permanent residents should be prepared and ensure their eligibility to apply under one of the several programs and meet the established requirements.

Book Appointment

An IRCC internal briefing memo that has been obtained via an Access to Information Act request, states that in December 2020 Invitations to Apply for PR through Express Entry under the FSWP (Federal Skilled Worker Program) were paused due to travel restrictions preventing approved applicants from landing as permanent residents. This pause was extended into 2021 and now 2022 with its end scheduled for January 31, 2022. Now, it seems, IRCC has requested a further pause of Express Entry draws in an attempt to alleviate the severe backlog of applications.

Why Have ITAs Stopped Being Issued?

Whilst this initial pause enabled IRCC to create the TR to PR program (Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident), which helped to support 2021 admissions goals of new permanent residents by increasing the number of Canadian residents who could apply for permanent residence, it hasn’t done anything to help with the accumulation of Express Entry Federal Skilled Worker, Canadian Experience Class, and Federal Skilled Trades applications which are still in process. This has pushed the processing times for these applications way beyond the six month service standard to approximately 20.4 months for FSW applications. The memo predicts that processing times may even increase to 36 months throughout 2022 for FSW.

The memo, although redacted in various sections, also brings to the forefront the CRS (comprehensive Ranking System) and implies that once draws do resume, there are so many people in the pool (over 207,000 at the time this memo was written sometime in late 2021) that the lowest CRS score will be above 500 and remain high once draws begin again. It states that PNP (Provincial Nominee Program) invitations will continue.

What does this mean?

Express Entry ITAs for FSW, CEC, and FST draws will likely remain paused for the foreseeable future.
According to the memo, there are so many applications currently in process, that IRCC could meet their immigration goals through 2023 without inviting anyone to apply through Express Entry for PR until at least July 1, 2022.
The current backlog is so long that even people invited to apply now for PR under the FSW would not even become permanent residents until 2023.
The number of Skilled Workers originally planned to be invited in 2022 (110,000) could be reduced by up to 50%
When draws do resume, the lowest CRS score is expected to stay over 500 for at least 6 months

What is FHS (Federal High Skilled)?

This refers to the grouping of Federal Express Entry programs: Federal Skilled Worker, Canadian Experience Class, Federal Skilled Trades

IRCC Internal Memo Re: Federal Skilled Worker and CEC Draws in 2022

The memorandum addressed to the Deputy Minister and the Associate Deputy Minister is reproduced below – Please note that all emphasis is ours:

[SUBJECT] Managing the Federal High Skilled Inventory – FOR DECISION

The purpose of this memorandum is to seek your decision regarding an extension of the pause on Federal High Skilled Express Entry Rounds from November 1, 2021 to January 31,2022, based on existing large inventories and limited levels space planned for the Federal High Skilled (FHS) streams in 2022
Travel restrictions that were in-place throughout most of 2020 and 2021 have led to the accumulation of a large volume of FHS applications in the processing inventory. This will continue to drive processing times up in excess of the six month service standard.
At this time, the department projects that the inventory under the FHS streams (Federal Skilled Workers, Federal Skilled Trades and Canadian Experience Class) at the end of 2021 will be more than sufficient to meet admissions targets next year, under all of the scenarios currently under consideration in the 2022-2024 Multi-Year Levels Plan.
[REDACTED]

BACKGROUND:

The department has maintained a pause on Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) invitations since December of 2020, due to travel restrictions inhibiting the processing of overseas economic applications. In the spring of 2021, the Department created the Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Pathway (TR2PR) and invited large numbers of Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates, in an effort to support 2021 admissions by increasing the number of Canadian residents who could apply for permanent residence.
This led to significant inventory growth, which will need to be addressed in upcoming years. The inventory buildup has led clients, who previously applied through Express Entry streams, to face processing times in excess of the six month service standard.
The number of FHS [Federal High Skilled] invitations issued from January 1, 2021 to September 20, 2021, will for the most part result in 2021 admissions. However, with the border effectively closed since March 2020 for overseas skilled workers, the FHS inventory grew significantly. In order to achieve the 6 month service standard and respect the FHS levels space planned in 2022, this inventory would need to be reduced by more than half before inviting any new clients to apply.

CURRENT STATUS:

Under current options being explored as part of the 2022-2024 Multi-year Levels Plan (MYLP), FHS is likely to face a significant reduction to accommodate other ministerial and departmental priorities. Under the current options, the FHS admission target could be significantly reduced with some preliminary scenarios seeing decreases by more than 50% of the 110.5k that was allocated in the previous plan. These reductions are due to admissions space required to accommodate the TR2PR stream and the resettlement of Afghan nationals to Canada.
FHS rounds have been paused since September 20th. An estimated 76K FHS persons will be on inventory at the start of 2022, which is significantly higher than what is needed to meet 2021-2023 FHS admission targets, and therefore, no new FHS intake is required for at least the first half of 2022.
FSW processing times are currently at 20.4 months (over three times higher than the service standard), and is expected to continue to grow as older inventory is processed. The FSW processing time is expected to rise to 36 months throughout 2022. For CEC, the processing time is 7.6 months.
Given that existing inventory is sufficient to meet FHS levels space under all scenarios being considered for 2022, any FHS invitations issued between November 1, 2020 and January 31, 2022 will be processed outside of the six month service standard, and will not contribute to 2022 admissions.
The size of the Express Entry pool has grown over the last year. This trend is expected to continue, with the pool growing to approximately 207,000 candidates by the end of 2021, even if invitations to apply are resumed at a modest pace.
Given the current composition of the pool, the minimum Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score necessary to receive an invitation to apply would likely rise above 500 and remain high, regardless of whether invitations are further paused, or resume at a modest pace in the very near term. In both scenarios, the CRS score would likely remain high for approximately six months. Candidates with these scores have very high human capital, but also tend to be very homogenous (high language proficiency, education levels, significant work experience and potential arranged employment).