An Express Entry report for 2019 was published by the IRCC Ministry of Refugees, Immigration and Citizenship with a detailed description of interesting results.
In 2019, 332 331 applications were submitted using the Express-Entry system, which is 20% more than in the previous year. Of these applications, 72% were eligible for one of the federal immigration programs.
Another interesting point is the distribution of candidate CRS scores in the Express Entry pool.
On January 29, 2020, there were 49,498 candidates with a CRS rating of 350 to 399 and a total of 41,128 with a CRS rating of 400 to 449.
Another 20,326 candidates had CRS scores of 450-499, and 30,399 candidates had scores below 350.
CRS scores in 2019 were between 438 and 475.
The total number of invitations issued by IRCC in 2019 was 85,300.
Slightly less than half of the total number of invitations were within theFSWP program. About a third were invited under the CEC program. About a fifth were invited as part of the provincial PNP programs.
Most invitations were sent to candidates between the ages of 20 and 34 (86%). Most candidates also have a bachelor's degree (at least three years or more) (90%).
The most common core professions of the invited candidates were software development engineers (NOC 2173), information systems analysts and consultants (NOC 2171), programmers and interactive media developers (NOC 2174). Other professions were in finance, business, marketing, and technology.
Among the candidates who received an invitation to submit an application (ITA), the most common countries of citizenship were India, Nigeria, China, Pakistan and the United Kingdom. Only India accounted for almost half of all the candidates who received invitations.
As one would expect, most candidates were chosen by Ontario. These candidates make up about 64% (i.e. 69,969 candidates). The second most popular place was British Columbia, which accounted for another 18% (20,064 candidates).
The situation changed in 2020. Since the coronavirus has become a threat to the safety of the Canadian population, certain special measures have been taken into account, such as restrictions on optional trips.
Regular draws, which were previously held every two weeks and included all the programs, were no longer held. Instead, Express Entry were now held from time to time, sometimes for several days.
For this reason, a total of 21 raffles were held in 2020. For comparison: by the same time last year, only 12 draws were held.
To date, Canada has issued a total of 49,900 invitations to apply for permanent residence.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic and current travel restrictions, this number exceeds the number of invitations issued by the same time last year.
