23-04-2014
Citizenship and Immigration Canada recently announced changes to the Federal Skilled Worker Program, Canadian Experience Class, and Federal Skilled Trades Program.
On April 23, 2014 Citizenship and Immigration Canada announced that Ministerial Instructions will be announced on April 26th regarding the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) Program, Canadian Experience Class and Federal Skilled Trades Program.
Federal Skilled Worker Program
The FSW program will re-open, and continue to be an attractive immigration option to many skilled workers without a Canadian job offer. As of May 1st, 2014The Eligible Occupation Stream will introduce the following improvements:
-New Eligible Occupation List with 50 Eligible Occupations
-Higher overall maximum – 25000 is the new maximum
-Higher occupation sub-caps – A maximum of 1000 applications can be accepted from each eligible occupation
No Changes Announced to Points-System
No announcement was made about the points-system undergoing changing. The current (2013) FSW eligibility system requires:
1- At least 1 year of full-time, skilled work experience
2- Language test results demonstrating at least an intermediate language proficiency (Canadian Language Benchmark 7) in English or French
3- An Educational Credential Assessment by a designated organization
4- Work experience in an eligible occupation
New Occupation List – 50 Eligible Occupations
The New Occupation list introduces many occupations that did not appear on last year’s list (nurses, senior managers, financial managers, software engineers, information system consultants) and re-introduces many popular occupations that did appear last year (civil engineers, computer programmers etc.). The complete new Eligible Occupation Stream list is available at:
Brief Reaction
This announcement is amazing news for eligible applicants around the world. Not only did the FSW program open, it expanded. This is the first year since caps were introduced in 2010 that the FSW program has increased its caps or number of eligible occupation.
Changes Also Announced For Canadian Experience Class
The Canadian Experience Class (CEC) will now have an overall cap of 8000 applications and have sub –caps of 200 for each occupation classified as NOC B (Occupations with the second digit of 2 or 3 occupations usually require college education or apprenticeship training). There will also be 6 occupations that are considered ineligible:
NOC 1221 – Administrative officers
NOC 1241- Administrative assistants
NOC 1311- Accounting technicians/bookkeepers
NOC 6233 – Cooks
NOC 6311 – Food Service Supervisors
NOC 6211 – Retain Sales Supervisors
Federal Skilled Trades Program Changes
The Federal Skilled Trades program will have an overall cap of 5000 and 90 trades from NOC B occupations will be eligible with sub-caps of 100.
