Canada has always been the preferred location for immigrants from all over the world. The country offers a stable lifestyle and growth opportunities to every individual, which result helps in boosting the economy and labor market. 

However, it is seen that the number of immigrants post-pandemic times has decreased. Not just that, but Canada is facing a significant backlog in its labor market as well. 

To take hold of the situation, the Minister of Canada’s Immigration, Sean Fraser, gave his statement in Vancouver on 24th August 2022 that IRCC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) is actively hiring 1,250 employees by this autumn to speed up the application work and reduce the backlogs cutting the processing time. 

Furthermore, the user experience will be upgraded, and the labor shortage issue will be consulted, making the whole process time and energy efficient. 

The Growing Backlog Of Applications In IRCC

As of mid-July of 2022, the backlog of applications in IRCC went from 2.39 million in the previous month to 2.62 million. The minister held the pandemic responsible, due to which the work accumulated and many employees taking positions from home declined the department's efficiency. 

Moreover, the country’s response to the plea of immigrants from Afghanistan and Ukraine due to humanitarian crises further piled up the application backlog. 

Both countries’ governments established a program named CUAET (Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel allowing as many immigrants to migrate to Canada from Ukraine as of 17th March. 

Now that IRCC has finally accepted that there is a significant backlog in the processing of applications, it has also stated that this is further fueled as the country aids the needs of humanitarian crises. 

According to the figures in IRCC records, around 495,929 applicants registered, whereas only 204,793 were approved as of 17th August 2022. The government had an influx of applicants, and due to a shortage of helping hands, only 54 percent of those applications were processed under the government’s service standard. 

By hiring more employees, the IRCC is estimated to process about 80 percent of all applications as soon as possible. 

To keep transparency in the entire process of reducing the backlog, IRCC has decided that it will publish the monthly data of applications on its official website. 

Moreover, it will issue more information regarding the steps to take control of the situation and improve the current system to make it work more efficiently. 

Immigration Record By IRCC From January To July 2022

The stats show that in 2021 IRCC permitted 405,0000 new permanent residents to Canada. On the other hand, for the year 2022, IRCC targeted about 431,000 permanent residents per their Immigration Levels Plan; till now, 275,000 new residents have been registered from 1st January to 31st July. 

During the same period, 349,000 new work permits were issued, including open work permits (OWP) 220,000. The OWP allows applicants to work anywhere in Canada for most occupations. 

The country has also seen an increase in study permit applications, of which 360,000 are finalized till now, 31 percent more than the tidal number of study permits issued for the same period in the year 2021. 

An Overview Of The Backlog In IRCC 

The major setback was the pandemic, which greatly disoriented the whole process. The figures show that the backlog of IRCC has tripled during the pandemic. 

According to the CIC News, which received the latest data from IRCC has indicated that the backlog was around 2.7 million applicants as of mid-July. While comparing to the recent data issued by IRCC then, the backlog has declined to 2.4 million applicants for July. 

Moreover, the organization has laid the guidelines to define the applications under backlog, which states that the applications that were or are processed according to the IRCC’s service standards are not considered part of the backlog. 

At the same time, the applications that were not or still are not processed within the IRCC’s service standards are regarded as backlogged. 

The service standards set by the IRCC are seen as the benchmark for every line of business. For example, the Express Entry option has a service standard of issuing the permanent residence application within six months. 

The IRCC web page shows that around 47 percent of the applications of 639,500 endless residence applications are processed within the service standards only.  

On the other hand, about 1.4 million temporary residence applications are processed within the service standards only. Meanwhile, 65 percent of 379,000 citizenship applications are being processed within the service standards laid by the IRCC. 

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