Canada’s Immigration Minister Sean Fraser has announced that Express Entry invitations for Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) and Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates will resume by early July.
At the same time, the Minister stated that he expects the majority of new Express Entry applications to be processed within a six-month service standard.
This is major news since Express Entry draws for FSWP candidates have been paused since December 2020, while draws for CEC candidates have been paused since September 2021.
The processing times for these programs are also currently well above the six-month target.
IRCC implemented the temporary interruption in order to process highly skilled applications waiting in queue and reduce the Express Entry backlog which was exacerbated by the pandemic.
This temporary policy change has had the effect of reducing the flow of foreign skilled immigrants to the Canadian labour market at a time when there are nearly one million job vacancies and historically low unemployment rates.
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