Express Entry Draw: 266 PNP candidates invited

The latest program-specific express entry draws held on April 14, targeting express entry candidates with provincial nomination certificates, issuing 266 invitations to apply for Canada PR Visa.

The minimum Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score cut-off was set at 753 points. These many points can be seen more in comparison to Canadian Experience Class (CEC) specific express entry draws. However, Express Entry candidates with a provincial nomination are awarded 600 CRS points. If we don't count the CRS points for a provincial nomination, the minimum CRS score required would have 153 points.

Applicants with a minimum score of 753 were only invited if they had submitted their Express Entry profile by March 1, 2021, at 3:22:18 PM UTC, by the tie-break rule. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) publish the tie-breaker cut-off time as an administrative requirement, whether or not there is a tie.

IRCC has now invited 49,390 Express Entry applicants to apply for permanent residence so far in 2021, almost double what it was at the same time last year. In fact, on February 13, IRCC sent out 27,332 invitations, one for each eligible CEC candidate in the pool.

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Canada is stepping up its Express Entry welcome to meet its immigration targets for 2021. Last fall, the federal government committed to welcoming 401,000 newcomers in 2021, about a quarter of whom would go through the Express Entry system.

Since the start of 2021, Canada has organized 12 draws. All of them targeted CEC candidates or PNP candidates.

PNP-specific draws require a higher score threshold due to the 600 point prize that accompanies a Provincial Nomination. CEC-only draws tend to have lower minimum score requirements, as they do not compete with applicants from other classes, so more applicants with the highest scores may be invited.

IRCC also gives priority to applicants who are already in Canada. About 95 percent of CEC applicants were already in Canada, the highest proportion of any program run by Express Entry. This could be because Canadian work experience is one of the main eligibility requirements for the CEC. There were over 21,000 eligible CEC applicants in the basin.

Express Entry applicants may be eligible for more than one highly qualified federal program. All PNP applicants are eligible for another program managed by Express Entry. These candidates demonstrated to a province or territory that they had the connections and experience necessary to succeed in the job market that proposed them. PNP had the lowest number of applicants in the pool at 104 that day, but about 69% of them were in Canada.

Although there are over 141,000 skilled workers (federal) candidates in the pool, approximately 95 percent of them were outside of Canada. Almost 55% of federal skilled trades applicants were in Canada, out of a total of 669 applicants.