Canada, stop! 7 year-end immigration selections

At the end of the year, Canada is actively trying to fulfill its immigration plan and invites thousands of people literally every day. For different professions and with different passing scores.

Canada's immigration targets

Canada sets goals to welcome newcomers each year. The target for 2023 is 465,000 people. Apparently, before the New Year, officials decided they needed to rush through all the plans because I can't explain otherwise why in the last two weeks Canada has held 7 selections in a row under federal programs alone and invited more than 15,000 people.

First, a little explanation. Canada has over 120 official immigration programs and streams. The main ones are the federal ones: Federal Skilled Worker, Federal Skilled Trades, and Canadian Experience Class.

These three programs work through the Express Entry selection system. It awards each candidate points for age, education, language skills, work experience, and the like. Then there is an immigration draw when the candidates with the highest scores are invited. To find out how to calculate your points for free, read on.

Immigration draws

There were 7 selections from December 6 to December 21, with constantly decreasing passing scores. On December 6, there was a general Express Entry selection, that is, for all candidates registered in the system. Canada issued 4,750 invitations. I won't dwell on this here because the passing score was high — 561.

Already on December 7, there was a second draw, with 1,000 people with a score of 470 invited, but there was a condition — they had to know French well. Candidates with knowledge of French are now a priority for Canada, so they can expect lower scores. By the way, we are thinking of starting to offer French courses in 2024.

The next day, on December 8, a new round of invitations, but for STEM professionals. These are science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It invited 5,900 people, and the passing score was 481. Not the lowest, but not high either.

Next, officials decided to take a short break for 10 days. And then, on December 18, again general drawing. Another 1,325 people were invited, though the score was raised to 542.

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As the morning progressed, officials saw that the immigration plan was still a work in progress. So on December 19, there was a draw for trade professions. Again 1,000 invitations, and an even lower score of 425.

Then, on December 20, candidates with transportation professions were invited. The passing score went up and became 435, and there were not very many invitations — 670. By the way, the priority list of transportation professions includes truckers, a highly sought-after profession in Canada that immigrants often go into.

But in the last selection on the 21st, the score plummeted to 386. This is very low for Express Entry, many people can score this low even if they don't have a higher education and their English is not perfect. However, the number of invitations was again low, only 400 and only for agricultural workers.

You can find out all the priority professions in the Express Entry system in our article.

Conclusion

There were 7 draws in two weeks in which Canada invited 15,045 applicants. Most likely, they won't have enough time to get PR in 2023 because they will have to submit a package of documents to support their application. But in 2024, everything will be in place. Moreover, after 3 years of living in Canada, all these guys will be able to apply for Canadian citizenship. The path to a passport in Canada is quite fast.

We have developed a free Express Entry score calculator that uses your data to calculate how many points you will accumulate in the system and whether it is enough to immigrate to Canada.

Alex Pavlenko, founder of Immigrant.Today