Philippine Asian News Today | Page 15

April 16 - 30, 2016 PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY Immigration Corner By Giovanni G. Mata Philippines ranks second highest source country for Express Entry immigrants By: Giovanni G. Mata Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC) Certified International Trade Professional (CITP®|FIBP®) Philippine Lawyer, Law Society of BC Articling Applicant The Immigration, Citizenship and Refugees Canada (IRCC, formerly known as CIC) has just released a comprehensive and informative report about the Express Entry selection system covering the first year of the program since it was launched last January 1, 2015. Express Entry is an application management system used by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to manage immigration application for permanent residence in Canada under the following economic programs, namely: Federal Skilled Worker Class, Federal Skilled Trades Class, Canadian Experience Class, and Provincial Nominee Programs. Those who meet the criteria of one of the economic programs are accepted into a pool of candidates. Candidates in the pool are ranked according to their CRS scores at the time of an invitation round. The CRS score is based on the information provided by the candidate including their age, education, language proficiency and work experience. Candidates with LMIA backed job offer or provincial/territorial nomination are awarded additional 600 points. If a candidate does not have an LMIA backed job offer from a Canadian employer or a provincial nomination, he or she must register with Canada’s Job Bank. Those candidates with high CRS score have higher likelihood of getting an Invitation to Apply (ITA) for permanent residence. Once the candidate has received an ITA, he or she has 60 days to submit an electronic application for permanent residence. CIC will process the application within six months from the date of submission. In the said report, it shows that for the year 2015, a total of 31,063 Invitation to Apply (ITAs) were issued to applicant candidates. Majority of the candidates who received ITAs were residing in Canada and more than half were nationals of India, Philippines, China, U.K. and Ireland. According to the report, most of the candidates that were issued ITA’s are from the IT, Business & Finance, and Food Service industries. The top 10 occupations that received ITAs are: As shown on the table, those working as Food Service Supervisors (NOC 6311) or Cook (NOC 6322) were the largest group of applicants who received an Invitation to apply followed by IT professionals, university professors and business and finance professionals. In the early months since the Express Entry was opened, majority of the invited candidates are already residing in Canada. Most of them are foreign workers who are working in Canada with LMIA backed job offers. These foreign workers are nationals of different countries and as of January 3, 2016, there are around 3574 Filipinos who have been invited. The top 10 countries of citizenship of those given an Invitation to apply are: CONT A21 WWW.PHILIPPINEASIANNEWSTODAY.COM LOCAL NEWS A15