Why Canada Express Entry Occupation-Specific Draws Will Lead To Lower CRS Scores

Why Canada Express Entry Occupation-Specific Draws Will Lead To Lower CRS Scores

Lower minimum Comprehensive Ranking System scores are anticipated to be the effect of Canada's decision to implement occupation-specific draws through the Express Entry immigration system.

On May 31, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced that summer 2023 would see the start of draws concentrating on five major categories.

Healthcare, STEM, trades, transportation, and agriculture are the industries in Canada with the greatest workforce shortages.

Sean Fraser, the minister of immigration, claims that this will speed up Canada's flagship programmes' ability to address these labour market demands.
 

There are also unsolved uncertainties regarding the format of these drawings, such as whether the IRCC would focus on the entire field or only choose certain professions for each draw. 

However, it may be predicted that minimum CRS scores will be much lower than those for recent all-program draws, regardless of the answers to those questions.

Canada has had eight all-program draws since the beginning of 2023 with minimum CRS scores ranging from 481 to 507 and an average score of 489.

The scores have been declining, but it doesn't seem plausible that they will drop to the lower 400s, which Express Entry last saw before the pandemic.

Draws based on occupation appear likely to alter that.

When IRCC starts targeting NOC codes, candidates with work experience in those occupations are likely to get invited to that draw.

An experienced truck driver with a score of 250 could sit in the Express Entry pool indefinitely without getting an invitation in a world where only all-program draws were conducted.

From Canada’s point of view, it would get high-scoring candidates, but it wouldn’t get the right people to solve its truck driver shortage.

The new draws change that. In a draw targeted at truck drivers, every candidate in the pool with truck driver experience is in play. That does not mean they will all get an invite, but it does mean they all have a chance of getting an invite. 

Conclusion

Regarding Canada's transition to occupation-specific draws through Express Entry, there are still a number of questions, including how frequently the draws will occur and which NOC codes would be the focus.

By year's end, it will be more apparent how frequently the IRCC plans to use its authority to target occupations and which occupations it will target more aggressively than others.

However, it is quite certain that draws focused on certain professions will have lower CRS ratings than draws for the entire programme.

You are now more likely to succeed in getting an Express Entry invitation if you are a candidate with the necessary six months of experience in one of the 82 occupations.

In the following six months, everything will become evident.