ITA's To Candidates With No Job Offer Increases Dramatically

2016 Changes to Express Entry CRS Providing Huge Increase in ITA’s to Candidates Without Job Offers

Stats recently released by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reveal that 90 per cent of Express Entry candidates who received an Invitation to Apply (ITA) for permanent residence in the first half of 2017 did not have a Canadian job offer, up from 62 per cent in the 11 months before IRCC reduced the number of points it awards for a job offer in November 2016.

The data suggests that this change has significantly shifted the number of ITAs for Canadian permanent residence in favour of candidates with greater human capital scores (age, level of English and French ability, education, work experience), namely candidates in the Federal Skilled Worker Class. 

The data released by IRCC compares the ITA’s in the 11 months prior to the November 2016 changes and a six-month period after they were introduced. IRCC’s comparison confirms the following:

• The percentage of ITA’s without a Canadian job offer rose from 62 per cent to 90 per cent.

• The percentage of ITA’s who studied in Canada has increased from 30 per cent to 40 per cent.

• The percentage of Federal Skilled Worker candidates invited to apply increased from 25 percent to 48 per cent.

• The number of profiles deemed eligible for the Express Entry pool increased as a result of the changes.

Number of ITAs issued to candidates with and without job offers,
and with and without Canadian study experience

	Pre-November 2016 changes	Post-November 2016 changes
With job offer	10,795 (38%)	5,151 (10%)
Without job offer	17,614 (62%)	48,098 (90%)
With Canadian study experience	8,592 (30%)	21,433 (40%)
No Canadian study experience	19,817 (70%)	31,816 (60%)

While a job offer is not necessary to file an Express Entry profile or apply for permanent residence, the 600 CRS points allocated prior to the November 2016 changes provided a significant advantage to candidates who had one. That’s now changed with the reduction in job offer points (between 50 and 200), which IRCC says is making candidates in the Express Entry pool more reliant on their human capital scores to receive an ITA.

IRCC reports that the reduction in job offer points also appears to have had a significant impact on the occupation mix of invited Express Entry candidates. Following the job offer change, the top occupations now receiving ITA’s is as follows:

NOC 21 – Professional occupations in natural and applied sciences

NOC 11 – Professional occupations in business and finance

NOC 01-05 – Specialized middle management occupations

NOC 12 – Administrative and financial supervisors

NOC 22 – Technical occupations related to natural and applied sciences

NOC 40 – Professional occupations in education services

NOC 62 – Retail sales supervisors and specialized sales occupations

NOC 31 – Professional occupations in health (except Nursing)

NOC 05 – Middle management in retail and wholesale trade and customer services

NOC 63 – Service supervisors and specialized service occupations

Citizens of India were issued the most ITAs, both before and after the job offer change, with their share jumping by 12 percentage points after the change from 31 per cent of ITAs to 43 per cent. Chinese citizens were second, with 10 per cent post-change. Nigerian citizens placed third, with their share rising by two percentage points to five per cent of all ITAs in the six months after the job offer change in November 2016.

www.prudentimmigration.ca