September 1, 2015 10:30am
Skills Immigration & Express Entry BC – Temporary Pause on New Application Intake
The BC PNP receives an allocation of nominations each year from Citizenship and Immigration Canada. For 2015 this allocation is 5,500 nominations. Of these 5,500 nominations, 1,350 are dedicated to the federal Express Entry priority system.
The BC PNP has received more applications for Skills Immigration and Express Entry BC than it has nominations for 2015.
Effective September 1st, 2015, new applications will no longer be accepted for the majority of BC PNP Skills Immigration and Express Entry BC categories.
The BC PNP will only continue to accept applications under the following categories:
- Health Care Professional (Skilled Worker and Express Entry BC)
- Northeast Pilot Project
Please note that all new applications must be submitted online via BC PNP Online.
Applications will not be accepted under any other Skills Immigration or Express Entry BC categories at this time.
The Entrepreneur Immigration stream will continue to accept registrations for prospective applicants, up to a maximum of 200 per month.
The BC PNP will reopen the Skills Immigration and Express Entry BC categories in early 2016 with a new points-based intake system to prioritize high-impact applicants and ensure occupations and skills are aligned with B.C.’s labour market needs.
To ensure fairness and transparency for those who have already applied to the program, the BC PNP will continue to focus on assessing applications from the existing inventory for the remainder of 2015. B.C. continues to work with the federal government to increase the allocation of provincial nominations for B.C. in 2016.
Ref: http://www.welcomebc.ca/Immigrate/About-the-BC-PNP/About-the-BC-PNP/News-and-Announcements.aspx