Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) 2022 Year-End Report provided a data-driven run-down of the Express Entry system, the country’s flagship application management tool.

The report highlights areas such as profile submissions, candidates in the pool, invitations to apply (ITAs), applications, processing times, admissions, and economic outcomes of applicants.

It was noted that 2022 witnessed 428,391 submissions of profile through the EE system – a slight decrease of 3% from 2021 but an increase of 19% from 2020.

The proportion of profiles sent in last year that were eligible for at least one of the FHS immigration programs managed by EE (74%) was the same as in 2021.

Of those, while more profiles were submitted by men than women (56% submitted by the former category, while 44% by the latter), women consistently displayed a slightly higher proportion of eligible profiles by 6-7 percent compared to men.

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Who Made It into the Express Entry Pool in 2022?

In each year, including 2022, the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scores – which are used to rank EE candidates’ ability to succeed in Canada’s labor market – remained consistently concentrated in the 301-500 range, despite the fact that the EE pool is dynamic to change with every new eligible profile submission.

The CRS system is bifurcated into the “core” and “additional” components, with a maximum 600 awardable points for each section (and 1200 points in total).

While the former comprises of an applicant’s human characteristics, such as age, education, official language proficiency, and work experience, the latter allows consideration of additional points to increase a candidate’s probability of receiving an ITA.

The Report highlighted that a majority (55%) of those who submitted eligible profiles in 2022 did not meet criteria for any additional points at the time of submission.

This, however, is part of a gradual year-on-year reduction, from 63% in 2020 to 58% in 2021.

The trend in question is indicative of the fact that a growing number of candidates are eligible for at least one type of additional point, such as Education in Canada (23%) or Sibling/s in Canada (14%) (which were the most common types of additional points for men and women in 2022).

ITA Issuances in 2022

ITA Issuances by Draw

In terms of those invited to apply for permanent residence through EE, IRCC made use of the EE system’s “flexibility and responsiveness” to support the Government of Canada’s 2021-2023 Immigration Levels Plan.

COVID-19’s resultant delay in processing of overseas applications caused a “significant growth” in the FHS immigration programs processing inventory.

To manage the same, the Department put a temporary pause on ITA issuances to FHS immigration programs from September 2021 to July 2022, holding 24 ITA draws and issuing 46,539 invitations in 2022 – a 59% decrease from the 114,431 invitations from 2021.

ITAs continued being issued to PNP nominees throughout this period, along with 18,895 under the CEC. The remaining 8,386 ITAs were issued under FSWP and none under FSTP in 2022.

ITA Issuances by Gender

In terms of gender differences in outcomes, 58% of invitations were issued to men in 2022, who had more invitations issued to them than women in both CEC and the PNP.

ITA Issuances by Age

The 20-29 age-range – which is also the highest scoring under the CRS system – comprised 50% of the share of invitations issued. This was followed by the 30-34 age range, with an increase in 2022 compared to 2021.

ITA Issuances by Highest Level of Education

The percentage of candidates holding a high school or lower academic certification received 1% of the total ITAs in both 2020 and 2022.

The most favored education level was a master’s degree in both 2020 and 2022, at 42% in the former and 46% in the latter year.

In 2022, however, 54% of candidates issued an invitation held a post-secondary credential of three years or longer, while only 19% of candidates had a master’s or professional qualification.

PhD holders comprised only 4% of all ITA recipients last year.

ITA Issuances by First Official Language Proficiency Level

The stronger Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) or Niveaux de competence linguistique canadien (NCLC) score achievers received more ITAs in 2022.

These are the number of ITAs issued to applicants at different CLB/NCLC levels in 2022:

CLB/NCLC 4 – 7 ITAs (<1%)

CLB/NCLC 5 – 817 ITAs (2%)

CLB/NCLC 6 – 2,094 ITAs (4%)

CLB/NCLC 7 – 9,444 ITAs (20%)

CLB/NCLC 8 – 8,709 ITAs (19%)

CLB/NCLC 9 – 15,587 ITAs (33%)

CLB/NCLC 10 – 9,881 ITAs (21%)

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ITA Issuances by Amount of Canadian Work Experience

Those with one year of Canadian work experience received the majority of ITAs (41%), while those with five years or more received less than 1%.

ITA Issuances by Amount of International Work Experience

Applicants with five years or more of foreign work experience got the most ITAs issuances, at 16,251, while the category of applicants with the second-highest number of ITA issuances was the “No foreign work experience or less than one year” (who comprised 27% of ITAs).

Meanwhile those with two years of work experience in the international sphere received only 3,267 invitations.

There is a trend – comparing 2020 to 2022 – of the majority number of ITAs issued shifting from the “No foreign work experience or less than one year” category to the “5 years or more” of foreign work experience category, wherein 31% issuances were made in 2020 for the former category – which fell to 27% in 2022.

ITA Issuances by Additional Points Assigned

In 2022, Education in Canada (19,587) and Arranged Employment (8,756) were the most common additional point types for both men and women meeting criteria in 2022.

These were also the two most common additional point type for men, but the most common additional point type for women was Education in Canada (7,768) and French-language proficiency (4,029) in 2022.

ITA Issuances by Primary Occupations

Tech sectors dominated the top three positions under this section, with software engineers and designers (3,848 invites), information systems specialists (1,889), and computer systems developers and programmers (1,558) making up the three leading invite categories for EE.

For women, nine primary occupations were TEER 1, while for men, seven occupations were TEER 1.

The top 15 occupations amongst men that were not in the top 15 for women include: web developers and programmers, retail sales supervisors, technical sales specialist- wholesale trade, machinist and machining and tooling inspectors, senior managers-financial, communications and other business services, cooks, and other user support technicians.

The top 15 occupations amongst women that were not in the top 15 for men include: customs, ship and other brokers, professional occupations in advertising, marketing and public relations managers, financial auditors and accountants, accounting technicians and bookkeepers, and registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses.

In 2022, there was an equal distribution among the TEER categories in the top 15 occupations, with four TEER 0 occupations, four TEER 1, four TEER 2, and three TEER 3.

Country of Residence for ITA Recipients

1. Canada (31,486)
2. India (3,787)
3. Nigeria (1,730)
4. Cameroon (1,063)
5. USA (842)
6. Morocco (793)
7. UAE (683)
8. Lebanon (559)
9. Algeria (550)
10. France (381)
11. Other (4,665)

The most common countries of residence were the same for men and women in 2021 and 2022, but in 2022, a smaller proportion of women (61%) than men (72%) called Canada their country of residence.

The top two countries of citizenship for candidates receiving an ITA changed from India and China in 2020 and 2021 to India and Nigeria in 2022.

India’s margin for the top position also decreased from 47% in 2020 to 44% in 2022.

Who Was Admitted Via EE and What Were Their Most Common Intended Destinations?

116,228 principal applicants and their family members came to Canada as permanent residents through EE in 2022.

In comparison, 155,851 principal applicants and their accompanying family came in 2021 and 63,891 came in 2020. The reason for the decrease from 2021 going into 2022 were lower because of IRCC’s temporary pause of invitation rounds.

24% of EE-sourced admissions were through CEC in 2022, which is a large decrease from 84% in 2021. This is because CEC-specific rounds were held in 2021 but not in 2022.

Moreover, admissions under PNP (40%) in 2022 saw a large increase from 2021 and 2020 to become the main source of admissions, because only PNP-specific rounds were held for the first half of 2022.

Most incoming immigrants went to Ontario (60,194), as in previous years. However, that number fell significantly from 96,561 in 2021.

This was followed by British Columbia coming in at second place (19,974 admissions) and Alberta (13,140 admissions).

The least number of admissions went to Nunavut, at only 15. However, that number has doubled from 6 in 2020.

The Changing Express Entry System

The Express Entry operates on a two-step application management mechanism, and has been undergoing change in the recent past.

On November 16, 2022, IRCC implemented the new National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2021 system, which is updated every five years. IRCC uses the NOC to determine the occupational eligibility criteria under its immigration programs.

NOC 2021 replaced skill level groups with Training, Education, Experience and Responsibility (TEER) categories. As NOC 2021 was implemented 16 new occupations became eligible under FSWP and CEC, and eight new occupations under the FSTP.