Many countries across the globe are slowly rebounding from the pandemic and require newer policies that will bring greater focus on their economic growth. One such country is Canada which has shown the strongest recovery patterns after the COVID in comparison to any developed country around the world. According to the latest report the GDP of Canada has exceeded pre-pandemic levels and Canada’s unemployment rate is said to be the lowest ever since the beginning of the pandemic. Promising statistics also show it to be the lowest since the country has started keeping a track of the numbers way back in 1976. The country has now seen almost 115% of the jobs that were lost during the pandemic to have returned. This surely is an extremely positive sign and is a huge sigh of relief for many as now many employers and businesses are actively looking to fill hundreds and thousands of vacant positions in every sector across the country.
There has always been a trend in Canada that has seen migrants playing a major role in contributing to areas that are key to Canada’s prosperity such as Health Care, Science, and Research. Hence immigration has been and will continue to be a major driving force in fueling Canada’s economy. Keeping this in mind Canada is all set to boost the processing capacity of IRCC to ensure that the country gets more skilled workers. In order to support the same, the country has doubled the number of permanent resident decisions in the first quarter of this year compared to the same time period last year, which was the most successful year it has had in terms of the number of permanent residents resettled in Canada.
The total number of final decisions on permanent residence applications from January to March alone has been over
1,56,000. More than 113,000 new permanent residents have been welcomed since January. In order to boost this growing requirement for skilled workers and to facilitate more opportunities for international graduates, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Sean Frase has made several upcoming and promising changes related to Express Entry.

Let us take a look at the many measures that are announced.
1. Extending Post-Graduation Work Permits: This is going to be a huge relief to many who have concerns about whether they will be able to continue to work and stay in Canada. Canada is going to extend post-graduation work permits for recent international graduates and for those whose permits already have or will expire this year
ensuring that people are eligible for an additional open work permit for 18 months.

2. Application for New Permanent Residence Visa Open: Canada had put a pause on new applications for permanent residents from skilled newcomers as it had to pivot its strategy to welcome more people who were there on a temporary basis. Now it’s a welcoming change that Canada is going to begin to invite new candidates to apply for permanent residence under the Express Entry system starting in July. This will include newcomers who are already in Canada on the temporary status and those who are looking for an extension of an open work permit and even those who are nearing the expiry of a postgraduate work permit. The federal high-skilled processing inventory has been cut in half, decreasing from almost 112,000 in September of last year to just 48,000 by March of this year.

3. Open Work Permit: Applicants who applied for an open work permit while waiting for their permanent residence application to be finalized will be able to get permits valid until the end of 2024 and individuals will no longer need to stay in Canada while their applications are being processed. These measures that have been announced aim to address some of the pressing needs of Canada’s labor market requirements that need new talent from abroad in order to support its government’s broader efforts to ensure Canadian employers have the workers they need to succeed including through Minister Qualtrough’s recently announced temporary foreign worker program workforce solutions roadmap.