Latest Express Entry draw invited 529 candidates – 14th May 2020
Canada invited 529 Express Entry candidates to apply for permanent residence on May 13, 2020. Canada has now invited 34,829 immigration candidates so far this year. Express Entry candidates who received a provincial nomination were invited in the new Express Entry round of invitations.
Only candidates who had received a nomination from a Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) were invited in the latest draw, which is why the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) cut off was 718.
The score seems high because with the provincial nomination these candidates received an additional 600 CRS points. In other words, a candidate with a CRS of 718 who received an Invitation to Apply (ITA) this round would have had a CRS of only 118 without the nomination.
This PNP-specific draw appears to follow a pattern from Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) where Express Entry draws will alternate between targeting candidates with provincial nominations, and those from the Canadian Experience Class (CEC).
The previous Express Entry draw selected only CEC candidates and had a CRS cut off of 452, which is the lowest of the year so far.
IRCC has been holding Express Entry rounds this way since Canada closed its borders in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus on March 18. For a while the future of Express Entry draws was uncertain, as these times have often been described in general.
However, if we look back on the years it seems despite travel restrictions, and this new way of conducting Express Entry draws, there have still been more ITAs issued in 2020 than the same time in 2019 and 2018.
The frequency of Express Entry draws has also changed since special coronavirus measures were implemented. At the start of the year, it seemed Express Entry draws were happening like clockwork every two weeks on Wednesday. CRS scores hovered around the 470s without much change.
Then on March 18, when travel restrictions went into effect, the first PNP-specific Express Entry draw of the year was held, and just five days later the first CEC draw of the year. Since then the frequency of draws has been a little more unpredictable.
Canada remains on pace to achieve its Express Entry target of 85,800 ITAs in 2020, with 34,829 ITAs so far, compared with 31,250 at this time in 2019.
The people who are eligible for one of these programs submit their profile into the Express Entry pool, where they are given a CRS score based on their human capital factors such as age, work experience, education, and language ability in English or French.
The highest-ranked candidates are then invited to apply for permanent residence through regular Express Entry draws.