Express Entry offers record Canada PR ITAs in Q3-2018

The Federal Express Entry Program offered a record-breaking number of Canada PR ITAs over July, August, and September 2018.

Introduced in January 2015, the Express Entry Program handles candidates’ profiles for Canada’s three main economic immigration streams:

1. Federal Skilled Workers Program (FSWP)
2. Federal Skilled Trades Class (FSTC)
3. Canadian Experience Class (CEC)

All eligible applicants are assigned a score through the Comprehensive Ranking System. The highest-ranking applicants are issued Invitations to Apply (ITA) through regular Express Entry pool draws.

ITA Record set for July and September

22,800 invitations were issued in the third quarter of 2018. This was the most number of invitations ever issued in a third quarter since the introduction of the Express Entry Program.

June 2018 saw the Express Entry system issue 7,500 ITAs. This trend followed in the month of July with an equal number of ITAs being issued. July 2018 eclipsed the program’s previous July high of 3,202 ITAs in July 2017.

August 2018, however, failed to set any record. Though it issued 7,500 ITAs, it fell short of the 9,290 ITAs issued in August 2017.

August was followed by the record-setting month of September 2018. 7,800 ITAs were issued in total with the September 5 draw issuing the maximum invitations in a single draw with 3,900 invitations so far in 2018.

Large draws

According to CIC News, both July and August maintained the ongoing trend of large draws. Each of the 4 draws that were conducted in July and August saw 3,750 ITAs being issued.

The trend of large draws started in December 2017 when IRCC issued 2,750 invitations in each of the draws held that month. IRCC slowly ramped up draw size by increments of 250 or 500 in future draws reaching the record high of 3900 on September 5.

The draw size dipped to 3,500 in the September 19 draw but this drop by compensated by program-specific draws on September 24. IRCC issued 400 invitations in the Federal Skilled Trades Class.

The draw size returned back to 3,900 ITAs in the first draw of Q4 on 3rd October.

CRS range: 440 to 445

The minimum cut-off score for all draws held over Q3 ranged between 400 and 445. Of the 7 draws held in Q3, 6 of them had a minimum score between the range of 440 and 442.

Will 2018 surpass the ITA record of 2017?

With 22,800 ITAs being issued in Q3, the total number of ITAs issued in 2018 reached 62,500. IRCC had, by the same time last year, already issued 69,420 ITAs. 2017 saw a total of 86,023 invitations being issued.

If IRCC maintains the current draw size or exceeds the same, 2018 could potentially surpass 2017’s total.

The Govt. of Canada, under its Multi-Year Immigration Level Plan, has a target of 74,900 admissions in the year 2018. The target is set at 81,400 for the year 2019 through the Federal Skilled Workers Program (FSWP), FSTC, and the CEC.

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