Thinking Skilled Worker Immigration? Think Again.

The point system – a foundation of the Canadian immigration system is slowly crumbling into ruin.

Most of us are familiar with this process, and many have successfully immigrated to Canada by these means. For those unfamiliar, I am talking about the “Federal Skilled Worker” immigration category. The process facilitates the grant permanent resident visas based on assessment units or “points” awarded on an applicant’s education, work experience, age, proficiency in English and French languages, and ties to Canada. The pass-mark was 75 and then lowered to 67 points a few years back.

Now however, it doesn’t seem to matter what the pass-mark is, as the category is all but dead. For those of you waiting in the queue for visas, you are in good company – approximately 800,000 applications are pending worldwide in all application categories.

So, what does this mean? Let’s do the math.

Canada used to target to accept 1% of its current population for immigration each year. With a population of approximately 30 million, that meant a target of approximately 300,000 immigrants per year, from all categories (not just skilled workers). Canada never met this target under the Liberal government, rather would fall short in the 230,000 range and the Conservative government has scraped the 1% target altogether – who knows what that means (most critics predict a lower target).

Now, let’s factor in priorities. Citizenship and Immigration Canada prioritizes family reunification cases (children and spouses only, not parents or grandparents), refugees, humanitarian and compassionate cases, and now, provincial nominees. With high demand in all of those areas, the 200,000+ spots open each year sell out faster than a Britney Spears concert. And who is left behind? Skilled workers. Even if half of the spots were reserved for skilled workers (which they aren’t) a new applicant would have to wait more than 4 years for a visa!

Skilled workers just aren’t a priority anymore. Critics routinely say that the category fails to address Canada’s current labour market needs. With an emphasis on education and high level work experience, the system fails to attract persons wanting to work in labour-starved sectors including manufacturing, tourism, construction and agriculture (to name a few).

For those of you in the skilled worker queue, you have two options if you intend to pursue your visa. First option – wait (not very appealing, is it?). Second option – find a job offer in Canada. Skilled workers with arranged employment opinions from Service Canada and with PNP nominations are shuffled to the front of the queue. Instead of waiting years, an applicant could wait as little as 6 months for landing.

The bottom line is that Canada has shifted its priorities. Canada’s immigration policy for the 21st century is clearly focused employment based immigration system, and as such, the value of a job offers has never been this high for a prospective immigrant. A good education and work experience doesn’t cut it anymore, unless you have a job offer to back it up.