To further their commitment to fixing the labour shortage, the provincial government has taken another step forward and added the new online Saskatchewan Express Entry category for immigrants applying for permanent residence.
The online application will go through the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP), which is a major stream for incoming immigrant workers. Through this program, processing applicants takes between one and six months by the province and they are then nominated for permanent residency. Once they are nominated, they usually have to wait much longer to get processed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). On average, that process can take anywhere from 16-42 months, depending on the applicant, the country of origin, and other circumstances.
“Under the express entry stream, the candidates are ranked based on different success factors such as if they have a job offer, their language ability, work experience, etc. It all creates points,” said Alastair MacFadden, Assistant Deputy Minister for Labour Market Development. “If you have a provincial nomination, you get more points … The highest ranking members are invited to apply to immigrate. With the express entry, CIC said they’ll process permanent residency applications in six months or less. By comparison, it’s a significant commitment.”
Applicants in the federal express entry stream can either go through into the Canadian experience class, the federal skilled trades, the federal skilled worker program, or in some cases, the provincial nominee category. This new SINP express entry will go through the latter category by being nominated by the province.
When it comes to express entry, being highly qualified usually means the applicant has a post-secondary school education, work experience in a skilled occupation that’s in demand, and strong language skills. Thus, immigrant workers that have high skill levels according to those criteria will likely be invited to apply for permanent residency through the new express entry stream. According to MacFadden, being nominated by the province gives them an extra 600 points, which gives them an extremely high chance of being processed through express entry should they apply.
“We want to make sure that we exercise every option to bring workers to the province,” said MacFadden. “So what we’ve created in partnership (with CIC) is a sub category in the SINP that acts as a bridge between nomination and the express entry system.”
Now, instead of bottlenecking the program with the first-come-first-served system, it will instead push through the most qualified workers first. This will ease the backlog on immigrants applying for permanent residency while also aiding with the labour shortage. According to Jeremy Harrison, minister of immigration, jobs, skills, and training, trades are a top priority for Saskatchewan employers. They include jobs such as technical professions, management positions, mechanical engineers, machinists, etc.
“Saskatchewan has a high demand for skilled workers in most sectors,” said MacFadden. “A lot of it has to do with our demographic profile. There are a lot more people aging out and retiring than there are young people to replace them. It has to do with the composition of populations.”
Aside from just replacing retirees, MacFadden said that employers still need to find workers with experience, not just fresh graduates. While they’re encouraging co-operative programs and workplace internships on the one hand, they’re also looking to immigrants for this experience on the other hand.
“We expect that the introduction of express entry as a province to attract skilled workers to meet labour market demands,” said MacFadden.
