Ontario PNP invites 486 Express Entry candidates to apply for provincial nomination

After a two-month hiatus, Ontario held a new Human Capital Priorities Stream (HCP) stream draw on October 6.

The 486 invited candidates may be eligible for a provincial nomination to support their permanent residency application if they meet all the eligibility criteria of the program. This Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), which is aligned with the Express Entry system, gives foreign workers an automatic 600 points toward their overall score if they get the nomination.

The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) targeted Express Entry candidates with Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scores between 463 and 467.

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In this draw, the OINP invited candidates if they had work experience in one of the following 18 occupations:

NOC 0114 - Other administrative services managers
NOC 0122 - Banking, credit and other investment managers
NOC 0124 - Advertising, marketing and public relations managers
NOC 0125 - Other business services managers
NOC 0211 - Engineering managers
NOC 0311 - Managers in health care
NOC 0601 - Corporate sales managers
NOC 0631 - Restaurant and food service managers
NOC 0711 - Construction managers
NOC 0731 - Managers in transportation
NOC 0911 - Manufacturing managers
NOC 1121 - Human resources professionals
NOC 1122 - Professional occupations in business management consulting
NOC 2161 - Mathematicians, statisticians and actuaries
NOC 3012 - Registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses
NOC 3211 - Medical laboratory technologists
NOC 3231 - Opticians
NOC 3233 - Licensed practical nurses

Invited Express Entry candidates need to have at least one year of work experience in one of these occupations in order to receive the provincial nomination. If they are nominated under this, or any other Express Entry-linked PNP, they will be bumped to the front of the line to receive an Invitation to Apply (ITA) for permanent residence.

So far this year, Ontario has invited 4,851 immigration candidates under this stream.

In 2020, Ontario invited 6,716 Express Entry candidates to apply for a provincial nomination through the HCP stream, which made it Ontario's most popular Express Entry-linked program of the year.

How provincial nominations help Express Entry candidates get ITAs

Express Entry candidates who receive a nomination from a PNP automatically get an additional 600 CRS points toward their overall score. This effectively guarantees that they will receive an Invitation to Apply (ITA) in a subsequent Express Entry draw.

During the pandemic, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has been holding PNP-only draws, where candidates needed a PNP in order to be invited.

In 2020, Canada also held PNP-only draws as well as all-program draws towards the later half of the year, where all candidates were invited who had a score above the CRS cutoff.

Canada’s Express Entry system

Express Entry is an application management system for three Federal High Skilled immigration programs: Federal Skilled Workers Program (FSWP), Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP), and Canadian Experience Class (CEC). Express Entry candidates may be eligible for one or more of these programs.

Once in the Express Entry pool of candidates, IRCC awards points to candidates based on their human capital factors such as age, work experience, education, language ability in English or French, and other factors. The highest scoring candidates are then invited to apply in an Express Entry draw.

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