Minor Changes from January Was Shown By the Immigration Backlog of Canada

By admin (May 21, 2024)

Minor Changes from January Was Shown By the Immigration Backlog of Canada

As reported by the IRCC minor changes from January was shown by the immigration backlog of Canada as number of applicants in inventory has remained consistent with January data, at just over 2.1 million.

The data is from January 31 to February 1 which is very recent. Since July 2021, across all lines of business, the inventory progressed as follows:

• January 2-3 2023: 2,152,220 persons

• December 3, 2022: 2,243,097 persons

• November 3, 2022: 2,411,388 persons

• September 30, 2022: 2,600,000 persons

• August 31, 2022: 2,583,827 persons

• July 15-17, 2022: 2,679,031 persons

• June 1-6, 2022: 2,387,884 persons

• April 30-May 2, 2022: 2,130,385 persons

• April 11-12, 2022: 2,031,589 persons

• March 15 and 17, 2022: 1,844,424 persons

• February 1, 2022: 1,815,628 persons

• December 15, 2021: 1,813,144 persons

• October 27, 2021: 1,792,404 persons

• July 6, 2021: 1,447,474 persons

Recent Inventories 

As compared to 301,388 applicants as of January 3, the citizenship inventory stands at 302,980 on February 1.

As compared to 521,552 people as of January 2, the permanent residence inventory stands at 523,557 people as of January 31.

As compared to 1,329,280 persons as of January 2, the temporary residence inventory stood at 1,294,974 people on January 31.   

Therefore, there were enhancements in 2 of the 3 major categories. There was still a decrease of just over 34,000 applications in inventory for a temporary residence between January and February data.

Immigration CategoryPersons of January 31-February 1
Citizenship302,980
Temporary residence1,294,974
Permanent Residence523,557
Grand Total2,121,511

PNP and Express Entry Inventories

As shown by the data from IRCC, as of January 31, 47,868 applicants for Express Entry programs are waiting in the queue. It initially stood at 48,409 candidates but this is a small decrease of 541 applicants in inventory since the January 3 data.

Holding rounds of invitations were resumed by IRCC in July last year, for Express Entry candidates from all programs. Between 21 September, 2021 and 6 July, 2022 draws were limited to candidates in the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) due to IRCC struggling to meet its service standard of six months or less for Express Entry applications.

IRCC was enabled to reduce the Express Entry inventory and return to a 6-month service standard for the candidates who received an invitation to apply as of July 6 as there was a pause in Express Entry invitations to Canadian Experience Class and Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) candidates.

For both base and enhanced applications combined, there was a significant increase in the PNP inventory of 66,214 as compared to the January PNP data of 62,720 persons.

Family Class Inventory

For all family-class immigration programs, there was a slight drop from 125,631 to 124,771 applicants in the inventory.

In the inventory of The Spouses and Partners Sponsorship program, there was a slight decrease, i.e., 61,481 applicants to 61,191 applicants.

Compared to 52,960 persons waiting for decisions in January, The Parents and Grandparents program now has an inventory of 52,801 persons.

Service Standard 

Service standards provide the expected goal or timeline for how long it should take to process an application. The service standard and the actual amount of time taken by IRCC to process applications are not the same. Applications that are not processed are categorized as backlog within the service standard for their program.

Across all lines of business, 80% of applications are aimed to be processed by IRCC within a reasonable amount of time. This can change depending on the type of application. For example, to process a permanent residence application through Express Entry, there is a 6-month standard.

The service standard for child family class and spousal sponsorship is 12 months as stated by IRCC. Depending on the type of application, temporary residence applications have service standards that vary between 60 to 120 days and if it was submitted from abroad or within Canada.