In 2019, Indians bagged 40,275 invites, or 47% of total, to apply for permanent residence in Canada

MUMBAI: Indian citizens bagged 40,275 invites to apply for permanent residence in Canada, under the ‘Express Entry’ route. This is 47% of the total invites (85,300) which were issued to Express Entry candidates during 2019, by the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) – the immigration arm of the Canadian government. A fair share of these Indians includes those already working in Canada or migrating from US - owing to Trump administration’s increasing protectionist immigration regime.
As per the newly released report – the overall 2019 statistic of 85,300 is a slight decline from the 89,800 invitations issued in 2018. Likewise, the number of invites to Indian citizens declined by 3.36% from the earlier year’s statistic of 41,678. Indians, continued to top the charts, in all the three years, captured in this report.
Express Entry is a system used by the Canadian government to manage applications from skilled and qualified workers, for permanent residence through three economic immigration programs. These are the Federal Skilled Worker Class, Canadian Experience Class and the Federal Skilled Trades Class.

This system is point based. Candidates complete an online profile, they are then entered into the Express Entry pool and are ranked based on a score under the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS). The CRS score is divided into two portions. The ‘core’ score can reach a maximum of 600 points and is based on the candidate’s age, education, official language proficiency, work experience etc. Second, a maximum of 600 points are awarded to the candidates if they meet policy or other objectives such as: having a provincial nomination, a qualifying offer of arranged employment, Canadian educational credentials, French-language proficiency or a sibling in Canada.
Regular draws are held from the pool. The highest-ranked candidates, based on a cut off score are issued an invitation to apply for Canadian permanent residence. During 2019, 26 such draws were held and the CRS scores were concentrated in the 350-449 range.
Occupations in the technology sector continued to be most in demand, with software engineers and designers, information systems analysts and consultants and computer programmers/interactive media developers topping the list of those issued invites under the Express Entry system.
Even during the pandemic related lockdown, Canada did not stop its periodical draws and continues to remain open to inviting skilled immigrants for its economic growth. However, owing to closing of borders, across the globe, it appears that for now, the scales under Express Entry route could be tilted in favour of those already in Canada or perhaps also those in neighbouring US. Immigration experts say that a large majority of Indian citizens working in the tech sector in US are closely eyeing Canada.