New Express Entry draw: 529 PNP candidates invited

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.

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 recieved an Invitation to Apply (ITA) this round would have had a CRS of only 118 without the nomination.

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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.

A tie-break rule was applied in this draw and the date and time used was March 19, 2020 at 12:53:21 UTC. This means that all candidates with a CRS score above 718 as well as those candidates with scores of 718 who submitted their profile before this date and time, received an ITA in this invitation round.

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.

Canadian immigration is managed by the federal government. Express Entry is the government's system for managing immigration applications for three economic-class programs: Federal Skilled Worker, Federal Skilled Trades, and Canadian Experience Class.

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.

The following is a hypothetical example of someone who may have been invited to apply in today's draw:

Arun is 39, holds a bachelor's degree and has been working as a construction manager for six years. Arun has an advanced English language proficiency and has never worked or studied in Canada. He entered the Express Entry pool with a CRS score of 386. He recently obtained a provincial nomination through Alberta’s Express Entry stream. His new CRS score of 986 would have been high enough to obtain an ITA during the May 14 Express Entry draw.

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