New Year gift from the Canadian government: a visa to Canada in 2022

An immigration program has been launched that will call for candidates with low-skilled occupations and poor English. If you want to work in Canada, however, you are invited to apply to a job fair where you can get a job offer.

I will tell you about the requirements for the new programme, its pros and cons and which professions are suitable. I will also tell you what kind of workers are sought at the job fair, how to register there and what the special features are.

Immigration plans

In 2021, Canada has set a target of accepting 401,000 new immigrants. This is a very large number, but in the last few months the government has been issuing more 45,000 new permanent residents. As of November, Canada has already accepted 361,000 new residents. I think the target will definitely be met in December, but we will know the exact results in the new year.

For 2022, the plan is even more ambitious — no longer 401,000 but 411,000 immigrants. By the way, apart from that, the government has many more immigration goals.

Apparently Canada has decided to prepare for the plan ahead of time, because there have been a lot of job fairs and announcements of new immigration programs lately. It can get confusing, but if I remember correctly, Canada, and more specifically the province of New Brunswick, has held six job fairs in the last couple of months, one more is being registered for, plus New Brunswick has announced a new immigration program for university graduates, and Saskatchewan is launching a new immigration pilot for in-demand workers and is also going to hold some sort of job fair.

When I last time talked about the new pilot, the requirements were unclear, but now there are details. I think you'll find it interesting. I will say right away that the requirements are quite simple, but not all professions can apply. And there is one more minus, which I will also get to.

Job Fair

Let me start, not with the new pilot, but with the fact that Saskatchewan is now looking for health care workers who want employment in the province. Such professionals are sorely lacking, especially in a pandemic. Health professionals can apply on the provincial website. The important thing is that this is not a permanent residency application, but a work visa, not to be confused.

When you fill in the questionnaire, it will be accessed by local employers who can make you a job offer. So it works about the same as job fairs, where you don't have to search for jobs yourself. So far, the Saskatchewan government has not written about what format the online session will be. I'm assuming it will be along the lines of other job fairs. For example, New Brunswick officials talk about their province first, and then you can get an interview.

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But it does say that candidates selected by employers will be able to apply for immigration under Saskatchewan's stream for specialists with a job offer or just under the new immigration pilot, which you will learn about next.

Let me explain again. If you are a health care worker and you want to move to Saskatchewan, you apply. The employers review the applications and invite the people they like. They will probably call you for an interview first and give you a job offer if everything goes well. You may choose to fly to Saskatchewan on a work visa or you may decide to apply for permanent residency.

There is a list of appropriate professions. It includes pharmacists, nurses, primary care workers, physiotherapists, medical laboratory technicians, dental technicians, psychologists, nurses and other medical professions.

New pilot programme

Now to new pilot. Saskatchewan is not the most popular province in Canada, so hiring is a problem there. But there are areas where employees are particularly hard to find. Oddly enough, these are usually low-skilled jobs. Last time I mentioned my sons, who got a job at fast food restaurant for $15 CAD per hour without any problems, although they are still in school. We live in Ottawa where there's not as much of a shortage of employees, but there's still a need for workers.

By the way, I'll be recording interviews with my kids soon to tell them how they wrote the resume, how they submitted it and went through the interview process.

Back to the Saskatchewan pilot. It's called Hard-to-Fill Skills. That is, you need candidates with skills for jobs that are hard to fill. That's why the province decided to bring in people from overseas.

Not much is required of candidates: school education and a 4-point IELTS English test, which, again, is the school level. Plus 1 year of work experience in the last 3 years or half a year of experience in Saskatchewan. Hardly any of my readers work in Saskatchewan, so aim for 1 year in your country. But the experience must be in the same profession that you are applying for permanent residence.

Pros and cons of the pilot

The catch here is probably not hard to guess. You need to find a job in the provinces. But, first, since they are launching an immigration program, it means that there really is a shortage of such workers. Secondly, the pilot has an advantage. Right now the Government of Saskatchewan is accepting applications from employers who want to hire people from overseas. You have to look for a job on provincial website.

This is the official website from the Government of Saskatchewan, with job openings from local employers. At the time this video was recorded, there are over 9,000 open positions in various fields on the site.

It was also mentioned earlier that they would be looking for people through job fairs. Registration is just now open for the health care worker fair I wrote about above. Most likely there will be other fairs after that.

Applications for the new pilot will begin on January 15, 2022. In the meantime, you can look for a job or prepare documents.

Not all professions are suitable for a pilot. The list includes manufacturing, transport, agriculture, healthcare, catering and restaurant business. But there is a caveat on the official website that the rules are subject to change.

At the moment we need food and beverage processing workers, metal workers, industrial painters, farm workers, construction assistants, handymen, heavy equipment operators, cleaners, janitors, truck drivers, waiters, caregivers. The list of professions is quite long.

So far, some points in the pilot are not very clear. For example, the Government of Saskatchewan has written that the employer will have to help the immigrant after the move, but it is not clear how. It's also written that a limited number of invitations will be issued per year, but it doesn't say how many. And there is no information on how applicants will be selected. For example, other Saskatchewan streams have a scoring system with points, it doesn't say anything about points in the pilot. Maybe on January 15, when the pilot launches, there will be more clarification.

Immigration assistance

If you need help selecting an immigration program and processing documents, please contact our immigration company.

Also a reminder that we have launched a new training course on immigration to Canada. If the Saskatchewan program doesn't work for you and you're looking for more options, there are many new ways in the video tutorials. The course is recorded by a licensed Canadian immigration consultant and we have discounts available until the end of the month.

Alex Pavlenko, Founder of Immigrant.Today