Due to the global pandemic, Canada’s immigration system faced a significant problem where they could not process many applications and requests from prospective newcomers. In turn, it resulted in an immigration backlog in the system. However, as everything is restored to their normalcy, the immigration department is also innovating and producing new ways to clear the immigration backlogs.
It has become more crucial than ever as Canada is now facing a huge labor crisis in multiple sectors, including transportation, healthcare, and managerial services. At the same time, the aging workforce of the country makes it a prerequisite that more and more newcomer skilled workers are introduced to the market. Recent data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) shows that the immigration inventory is consistent with the number of applicants in January 2023. 2.1 million applications are waiting to be processed in the immigration inventory as of January 2-3, 2023.
Currently, as of January 31-February 1, the inventory has not witnessed much progress as the number of persons waiting is 2,121,511. Among these, the temporary residence inventory has 1,294,974 persons, whereas the permanent residence number stands at 523,557. The rest of the inventory of 302,980 persons includes citizenship applications.
From September 21, 2021, to July 6, 2022, IRCC was only processing applications and holding draws for the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) candidates. The IRCC could not process the Express Entry applications within six months or less. With this pause in the draws, IRCC could manage to reduce the inventory and has started to send invitations to apply to eligible candidates.