Immigration has changed. First Express Entry draw by professions
Canada changed the eligibility requirements and invited a new category of applicants for the first time.
Immigration to Canada will no longer be the same. On June 28, the first target draw in the Express Entry system took place.
What is Express Entry?
For those who do not know what Express Entry is, let me briefly explain. It is a system in which the Canadian government selects candidates for immigration. There are a number of requirements, and if you meet them, you can create an account. You will be assessed on various factors, such as age, education, work experience, language level, and so on. For each factor, you will be given points.
Canada holds regular selections, and each one has a passing score. If you score enough, you are invited to apply for permanent residency in Canada. If you do not reach the required number of points, you wait for the next draws.
Recently we talked in detail about how the Express Entry system works and who has a chance to immigrate through it.
More and more people want to move to Canada because it is a safe and developed country with minimal corruption and good treatment towards people. That's why the Canadian government has significantly raised the Express Entry passing score in the last 5 years. It is difficult for ordinary people without a master's degree, excellent English, and years of work experience to get such a score.
In theory, the smartest immigrants should have come to Canada. But statistics showed that many newcomers could not find a job. So despite their diplomas, they took jobs at McDonald's... or Tim Horton's, a popular Canadian fast food chain.
Officials looked at it, thought about it, and decided that something had to change. After all, immigrants are needed to pay taxes, and here the newcomers earned the minimum and, on the contrary, received all kinds of help.
As a result, Canada decided to conduct targeted selections and choose those with in-demand professions. So that after they move, they will be needed in the labour market and will be able to find a job in their field.
The first targeted selection: for whom?
On June 28, there was just the first such draw. It invited 500 people with healthcare occupations. If you have another profession, I'll tell you later who else will have targeted selections in the future.
Who was invited this time? A total of 35 professions. Surgeons, dentists, psychologists, nutritionists, therapists, nurses, massage therapists, pharmacists, and many more, even veterinarians and those who practice traditional Chinese medicine. The complete list is quite long.
There was another requirement — a minimum of 6 months of work experience in the last 3 years in the occupation was needed. Here you must not get confused, because you need a year of work experience to register in Express Entry. That is, you could work for half a year in an occupation from the list, and six months in any other occupation. The experience does not have to be in Canada.
The passing score this time was 476. Is that high or low? Actually, the score is lower than it was before in the general selections, but it is still high. Not everyone can score that high. But I would not draw any conclusions from the first selection, because the officials themselves, in fact, do not know what will happen after these innovations. Perhaps the score will be reduced, time will tell.
And I want to say one more negative thing about the medical profession. Medical professions require a license in Canada. That is, you cannot just come and start working, you have to be licensed, and it is often in health care that you have to retrain for this.
Who else is a priority for Canada?
Now, as promised, I will tell you about the other categories in which Canada will conduct targeted selections. They are also promised from this summer. The first category is candidates with knowledge of French at level B2 or higher. If you know French, this already adds extra points in Express Entry, and in the target draw, the chances of getting an invitation will be even greater.
The second category is professions in technology, science, engineering, and mathematics. By the way, there was a recent conference in Toronto where the Minister of Immigration spoke, and he said that they want to launch a separate immigration program for these professions that does not even require a job offer.
The third category is trades professions. This includes all kinds of plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and the like. Next are professions in the transport sector. This category, by the way, includes truck drivers. And then there are professions in agriculture, mainly butchers and farm managers.
And another category is healthcare, which was the first draw.
If you have a different profession but still qualify for the Express Entry, there will be general selections as well. The last one was on June 27, the day before the target drawing. And the passing score there, by the way, was 10 points higher than in the medical screening. So you can see from this particular example that it's easier to immigrate to Canada with an in-demand profession.
I strongly advise against putting off the process of gathering the documents to apply, because while you are doing this, the right professionals will be recruited and your in-demand profession will no longer be. So I recommend that you book a consultation with our immigration company.
Alex Pavlenko, founder of Immigrant.Today
