IRCC about to commence FSWP and CEC invitations in the month of July and extend open work permit limit for PGWP holders.

Canadian immigration minister Sean Fraser, on April 22, 2022 made some important announcements with respect to Express Entry invitations to FSWP and CEC candidates.

These announcements cleared some air about certainty of Canada PR candidates wherein he declared that the EE invitations to FSWP and CEC aspirants will begin by the start of July.

Apart from this, the minister made few more big announcements like IRCC’s decision on providing work permit extension of up to 18 months to Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) holders.

Here’s an overview of all the major pronouncements made by Minister Sean Fraser:

FSWP, CEC and FSTP candidates will receive Express Entry invitations by the beginning of July.
As per IRCC, existing processing time for Express Entry is somewhere between seven months and 20 months at the maximum. However, the new processing time for the Express Entry applications will be of six months service standard.
According to IRCC, about 95,000 Post Graduate Work Permits (PGWPs) will expire by the end of this year. So, candidates with this status will be eligible for a supplementary open work permit of up to 18 months which will start from coming summer. IRCC evaluates nearly 50,000 PGWP holders will benefit from this new open work permit. It is working on making the process more basic and simplified and shall update in the coming weeks regarding the same.
It will no more be mandatory for candidates to stay in Canada during the entire processing time of their application.
While waiting for their permanent residence application to be processed, candidates who apply for open work permit will be allowed to receive work permits with validity till the year 2024. This will make sure all the permanent residence applications get confirmed before the applicants require to put new application in order to extend their temporary status again.
To help the families reunite, the primary applicants’ first family members who are included in the applicants’ permanent residence application and staying outside of Canada will be given a chance gto get their own open work permit.

IRCC on increasing the number of applications being processed

IRCC notifies that the Express Entry backlog has been reduced by more than half in a span of six months, coming down to 48,000 in March, 2022 from a whopping 112,000 in September 2021. In comparison to the permanent residence decisions made in the first quarter of 2021, IRCC has now doubled it for 2022 in the same time period. Also, in the period from January 1 to March 31, IRCC has sealed 156,000 permanent residence decisions and processed more than 100,000 work permit applications in the first 4 months of 2022, which was just 58,000 last year during the same period.

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