Canadian Immigration Department to address the challenges the economy is facing.

Today the Canadian Immigration Department announced important news, addressing the most severe challenges the economy faces due to labor shortage. I posted an immigration news topic recently, where I talked about two significant immigration streams issues: one with prospective applicants in the FSW stream and second international students’ prospects of getting into PR status. First, the FSW draw has not been carried out for almost two years now, leaving many highly qualified applicants in the Express Entry Pool left in limbo. The second group is even more significant considering their investment here in Canada, first coming as students and about to complete the PGWP status. International students on PGWP could have lost their status and may have to leave Canada as per IRPA rules if the government failed to announce the CEC draws or possible extension of the PGWP. The Canadian government has announced the changes to its current immigration programs addressing these two significant portions of the Immigration program. In addition, the CIC also announced significantly speeding up the Federal High Skilled Inventory level for the year 2022. Here are some of the highlights of today’s announcement

1) At the beginning of July 2022, the government announced that it would start EE draws covering a pool of applicants in the FSW category.

2) They are extending PGWP for 18 months to international students already in Canada who are holding the Work Permits that were about to expire. This announcement will allow the international students to seek additional work experience and, with those changes, qualify for the Canadian Experience Class program, transitioning into PR status.

3) Over 157,000 International students became Canadian Permanent Residents, of which 88,000 directly from PGWP to Permanent Resident Status. 4) During the first quarter of 2022, Canada welcomed over 113,000 new Permeant Residents as part of the Skilled worker’s category.

5) Canadian Immigration department processed more than 100,000 work permits as part of the TFW program. This announcement seems to have addressed many of the challenges the Canadian Immigration Department was facing in light of labor shortages that Canadian businesses have been experiencing.