Does Canada’s Express Entry System Meet the Challenges of the Labor Market?

Abstract

While most immigrant-receiving countries have restricted immigration during the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada has taken a very different approach, increasing its immigration targets over the next three years. With this move, Canada has made it clear that immigrants are expected to play a lead role in the post-pandemic economic recovery. Most of these immigrants will be admitted through Express Entry, a hybrid system introduced in 2015 that combines elements of both supply- and demand-driven selection. In this article, we examine whether Canada’s hybrid selection system meets its current and future labor market needs in a post-pandemic world. Using a mixed methods approach, we combine analysis of an administrative dataset with data from qualitative interviews with employers and experts in the immigration sector. We find that while Express Entry is a flexible and responsive tool for selecting immigrants, it narrows the occupational profiles of newcomers. The system also does not fully address the labor shortages and skills gaps described by Canadian employers. We argue that Canada’s post-pandemic labor market will require a wider range of skills, and that Express Entry’s adaptability should be carefully monitored and adjusted to broaden the skill mix of immigrants and facilitate skills match between immigrants and employers.

Keywords:

• Skilled immigrants
• immigration policy
• post-covid economy
• Express Entry
• occupation
• mixed methods
• skill gap

Introduction

In an increasingly competitive global labor market, destination countries employ a range of strategies to bring in high-skilled international talent. While states such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada have long relied on supply-driven policies that assess human capital on a points-system without the requirement for employer sponsorship or job offer, others such as the US and Germany have instituted demand-driven systems in which employers play the dominant role in selecting skilled immigrants. Supply-driven immigration policies are perceived to be more transparent, allow for larger intakes of skilled newcomers, and tend to heighten the level of human capital they bring (Czaika & Parsons 2017). However, supply-driven migration shows clear vulnerability: it does not respond to employers’ labor needs as expeditiously as its demand-driven counterpart (Chand & Tung 2019). Immigrants admitted based on human capital characteristics often face significant difficulties finding skills-appropriate employment compared to those selected by demand-driven systems (Aydemir 2011). Recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of the two systems, countries such as Canada and Australia have actively adjusted their systems to place more weight on job offers and domestic work experience. Similarly, some countries with demand-driven systems (Germany, for example) have made efforts to incorporate elements of the “merit-based” points-system (Federal Ministry of the Interior & Community 2021). Most immigration regimes have thus increasingly coverged to hybrid models, which include employer input but also select based on human capital (Koslowski 2014). Previous studies have suggested that hybrid systems may offer the benefits of both models, without the previous drawbacks (Papademetriou & Hooper 2019). The economic crisis arising from the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to empirically test the resilience of the hybrid model of economic migration governance, using the Canadian system as a case study.

The COVID-19 pandemic overhauled global migration in an unprecedented way. During the early stages of the pandemic, many countries issued travel restrictions, closed borders, and limited entrance to citizens, permanent residents, and existing working visa holders. Such policy changes, as well as the fear of infection during travel, led to a significant decrease in immigration inflows to most major immigrant receiving countries. For example, in 2020, permanent migration inflows to OECD countries are estimated to have fallen by more than 30 per cent (OECD 2021). Canada’s entry of permanent immigrants also plunged by 46.1 percent between 2019 and 2020.¹

Despite these disrupted immigration flows, in August 2021 the Government of Canada lifted entry restrictions, pledging to “welcome 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021, 411,000 in 2022, and 421,000 in 2023”.² These targets are significantly higher than the numbers admitted annually before the pandemic. By the end of 2021, Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)³ announced that Canada had surpassed its ambitious annual goal despite the ongoing challenges of COVID-19 (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) 2021b).

Canada’s approach to immigration during the pandemic is unique among major immigrant-receiving countries. Australia, for example, kept immigration targets for 2022 at pre-pandemic levels, while New Zealand opted to restrict immigration and focus on engaging the domestic workforce (The Economist 2021). The United States initiated travel bans to target countries at the beginning of the pandemic. Between April 2020 and February 2021, it also stopped issuing most permanent visas with some exemptions, which “marked the first time that a U.S. president banned immigration strictly based on the state of unemployment in the country” (Gelatt & Chishti 2022, p. 6). Germany, like many other EU member countries, initially instituted entry bans on migrants, but soon allowed temporary workers in agriculture to return to the country (Szelewa & Polakowski 2022).

These adjustments reflect each country’s political priorities and governance philosophy which are embedded within unique social and economic contexts. Canada has chosen to embrace increased immigration as a means of rebuilding its economy post-pandemic, signaling the important role that skilled immigrants will play in its future prosperity (Feenan & Madhany 2021). The government plans to achieve these policy objectives by leveraging the flexibility of Canada’s current immigration system.

Express Entry (EE), implemented in 2015, is the main channel through which economic immigrants enter the country. EE moved Canada from a first-come, first-served (supply-driven) system to an invitation-to-apply, hybrid system that incorporates both supply- and demand-driven elements. The shift toward a more demand-driven system has only accelerated during the pandemic. When border restrictions were introduced in March 2020, the Canadian government invited only applicants with Canadian labor market experience who were already residing in the country as temporary residents. Throughout the pandemic, invitations have mostly been reserved for applicants who were already in the country.

The EE system has proven to be an agile tool to admit relatively large numbers of immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. But its ability to meet the needs of the post-pandemic labor market is an open question. Although limited, there is some recent evidence pre-pandemic that immigrants admitted through EE have had better labor market outcomes than non-EE economic-class entrants (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) 2020a). However, there are also concerns that EE gives too much power to employers, and hence, needs to be carefully monitored and assessed (Kaushal 2019). We argue that more nuanced analyses are warranted to ensure that the EE system meets the goals of Canadian immigration policy post-pandemic and in the long run. In what follows, we move beyond earnings/employment evaluations and examine the effect of EE on the occupational profiles of newcomers in order to gauge the potential of hybrid systems like EE in a post-pandemic world.

Our mixed methods analysis brings together data from a longitudinal administrative database of immigrants maintained by Statistics Canada with data from semi-structured interviews with key informants including employers, immigration consultants, and settlement service providers. Through our empirical analysis, we offer novel insights on the unintended consequences of EE and how it can be leveraged to systematically address the challenges of Canada’s labor market going forward. The paper is organized as follows: we first provide an overview of Canada’s evolving immigration policy and the introduction of the EE system. Then, we describe our methodological approach, followed by our results. Finally, we discuss the implications of our research.

Evolution of Canada’s immigration policy and the introduction of Express Entry

Canada’s immigration system started shifting from a purely “human capital” model, based on a points-system, toward a more “demand-driven” model, with the growth of two immigration streams—the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) and the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) in the late 1990s and late 2000s (Sweetman 2017). Each province and territory (except Quebec, which has a separate selection system) has a unique PNP that allows them to select immigrants based on regional labor market needs (Fudge & MacPhail 2009). The PNPs established the practice of permitting employers to sponsor temporary foreign workers (TFWs) as provincial nominees (Flynn & Bauder 2015). The Canadian Experience Class (CEC), on the other hand, is reserved for those who have acquired skilled work experience in Canada in a managerial, professional or technical occupation, either as a temporary foreign worker or through a post-graduation work permit (PGWP) in the case of international students (Alboim & Cohl 2012). These two streams shifted the immigration system from a one-step process that largely admitted immigrants directly from their source country based on “merit”, toward a two-step process in which prospective immigrants first enter as temporary foreign workers or international students, and accumulate work experience in Canada before applying for permanent resident status.

The Express Entry system was introduced in 2015 to provide “flexibility in selection and application management, responsiveness to labor market and regional needs, and speed in application processing” (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) 2016). EE, at first glance, is the digitization of Canada’s immigration application system. One of the objectives of EE was to eliminate the backlog of applicants that had accumulated in the previous, supply-driven immigration model. Arguably, a demand-driven selection system speeds up processing time, as candidates can only apply if they have been invited. Initial results showed that EE was indeed faster than the old points system with 80% of applicants receiving a final decision within six months of submission (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) 2017).

However, in addition to digitization, EE also altered the Canadian immigration application process completely. Before the introduction of EE, principal applicants submitted all application documents and waited for a final decision from IRCC. In the EE system, applicants must first submit an online Expression of Interest (EOI); those who are eligible are ranked based on a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS). The CRS, a dynamic, competitive system, assesses applicants’ admissibility by projecting their “ability to become economically established in Canada” (Immigration & Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) [Canada], SC 2001). IRCC releases a minimum CRS score on a bi-weekly basis, inviting the highest-ranking applicants in the pool to apply for permanent residence (PR). In each round, invitations to apply can be specific to one or more immigration programs, such as the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), Federal Skilled Trade Program (FSTP), Canadian Experience Class (CEC), and Provincial Nominee Program (PNP).⁴

CRS scores are based on human capital factors (up to 500 points⁵), including age, educational credentials, English/French language ability, and work experience. Skill transferability indicators (up to 100 points) award points when a candidate performs well in two areas, such as education or foreign work experience, along with Canadian work experience or English or French language proficiency. Finally, “additional” factors (up to 600 points) include having postsecondary education in Canada, French-language proficiency, a sibling who is a permanent resident or citizen in Canada, a provincial or territorial nomination, or a qualifying Canadian job offer. Although EE does not mandate a job offer or employer sponsorship, by heavily favoring those with domestic work experience, it gives employers significant power to determine who receives permanent resident status.

Early evaluations of EE have been largely positive, pointing to reduced processing times, flexibility, and the potential to balance supply and demand with regional interests. However, several concerns have also been raised, including EE’s focus on principal applicants with few points allocated to dependent applicants, and its overall complexity (Bures, Klvanova, & Stojanov 2020; Desiderio & Hooper 2016; Hiebert 2019; Papademetriou & Hooper 2019). The pandemic has accentuated additional fault lines in the EE system, most notably “how skewed our immigration system is towards high human capital, despite the fact that many of our labor shortages and essential workers are in occupations deemed lower-skilled” (Esses et al. 2021: 703). The preference for immigrants in occupations belonging to professional, managerial and technical skill levels has meant that many essential workers who are temporary foreign workers—a precarious and vulnerable group—have little chance of becoming permanent residents despite pronounced labor shortages.⁶

In 2020, the IRCC conducted the only empirical investigation to date on the impact of EE on labor market outcomes. Examining data from 2015 and 2016, this investigation found EE immigrants were 9 percentage points more likely to be employed and had 20% higher earnings than non-EE immigrants one year after arrival (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) 2020b). There are signs that the pandemic may have weakened these gains, however, with reports indicating that in the early phase of the pandemic, new immigrants (those who landed in the last 10 years) were more likely than Canadian-born employees to lose their job (Esses et al. 2021; Feenan & Madhany 2021).

During the pandemic, the IRCC quickly established new programs at both federal and provincial levels to attract immigrants with essential skills and meet immigration targets. For example, to meet its ambitious annual immigration targets, in February 2021, the government lowered the CRS cutoff score, and a record 27,332 candidates who were already working in Canada were invited to apply for permanent residence⁷. In response to skill shortages in the service sector exacerbated by COVID-19, in May 2021, the EE system offered special pathways that admitted 20,000 health care and 30,000 non-healthcare essential workers. These initiatives suggest that a hybrid model like EE can be a flexible and potentially effective policy tool for responding to unexpected changes in the labor market.

The present study evaluates whether Canada’s hybrid EE model addresses the needs of its post-pandemic future. It is important to empirically investigate whether the EE system achieves its intended outcomes. It is equally important to examine any unintended repercussions of the system, particularly in light of the lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods and data

We adopt a mixed-methods approach by combining administrative data with semi-structured key informant interviews. For the quantitative segment of our study, we analyze a unique administrative dataset: the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB), managed by Statistics Canada for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The IMDB contains landing records of all immigrants arriving in Canada since 1952. The records include demographic and human capital characteristics, immigration category, and intended occupation in Canada. From these data, we contrast the occupational profiles of EE principal applicants with those of other economic (non-EE) principal applicants from 2015 to 2019. Although EE was launched in 2015, about half of the economic immigrants arriving 2015-2019 were not selected through EE, because they either applied before 2015 or entered through the non-EE PNP stream (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) 2020b). The proportion entering through EE has been increasing over time, however, suggesting that EE is becoming the predominant selection system as non-EE streams are phased out. We limit our sample to economic class principal applicants who were not admitted through the Quebec program and who landed in Canada at age 19 and older. The EE system during this period admitted immigrants through four tracks (i.e., Federal Skilled Workers, Federal Skilled Trades, Canadian Experience Class, and the Provincial Nominee Program), so we narrow our non-EE immigrants to these four programs. The non-EE applicants were first come, first served, submitting an application and waiting for the decision, while the EE applicants were invited to apply based on their CRS scores. Although our landing data is from pre-pandemic years, those entering during this period are likely to play a major role in Canada’s post-pandemic prosperity. The impact of Express Entry in the early years after its introduction may therefore have ripple effects well into the future.

We present select descriptive statistics contrasting the demographic characteristics of EE and non-EE principal applicants arriving between 2015 and 2019 in Table 1. Compared to non-EE principal applicants, EE entrants are younger (on average, 32.5 years old vs. 37.6); they are more likely to be male and single; come from South Asia as opposed to other regions; and have previous Canadian work experience. They are also more likely to speak English and/or French, have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and be admitted through the FSWP or CEC. Most non-EE economic immigrants during this timeframe are admitted through non-EE PNP streams. The differences in characteristics between the two groups are statistically significant based on independent t-tests (results available upon request).

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of economic principal applicants by express entry status, 2015–2019.

Variables	Non-Express Entry	Express Entry
Landing year	2016.6	2017.8
Age at landing	37.6	32.5
Female	44.9%	38.9%
Married at landing	54.1%	46.8%
Official language ability
English only	94.8%	95.4%
French only	0.04%	1.0%
Both English and French	1.8%	3.4%
Neither English nor French	2.8%	–
Immigration category
Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP)	15.4%	42.0%
Federal Skilled Trade Program (FSTP)	0.1%	1.9%
Canadian Experience Class (CEC)	7.1%	39.5%
Provincial Nominee Program (PNP)	54.5%	16.4%
Other immigration category	22.7%	–
Source region
Europe	8.3%	12.4%
Africa	9.0%	14.5%
South Asia	27.8%	47.4%
East Asia	16.6%	11.4%
Oceania and other Asian countries	33.6%	6.2%
South and Central America	3.8%	5.9%
US and other	0.75%	1.9%
Worked in Canada before landing	76.8%	78.1%
Education
High school and less	5.6%	5.8%
College	12.8%	4.4%
Bachelor’s and above	81.6%	89.8%

Source: IMDB 2015-2019.

For the qualitative component of the study, we engaged two sample populations: 1) human resources (HR) professionals or hiring managers, and 2) specialists helping foreign nationals apply for Canadian skilled-immigration programs and providing settlement services post-arrival. The interviews with HR professionals/managers provided insight into whether newcomers entering through the EE system possess the skill sets Canadian employers are seeking. Our second sample of immigration lawyers, consultants and settlement service providers supplemented this data by offering perspectives on the broader impacts of EE on the Canadian labor market. Interview data from the first sample group (HR/hiring managers) was collected through individual interviews and focus groups between December 2018 and February 2020 as part of a larger research project—under which the current study falls—aimed at understanding the broader experiences of employers and newcomers within the Canadian immigration system.⁸ Six managers were interviewed one-on-one, and 35 others participated in four focus groups consisting of 8 to 9 individuals each. We recruited the HR/hiring manager participants through university alumni networks and online business networking platforms. The employer-side participants represented diverse industries, including community services, marketing, utilities, public service, professional services, finance, insurance, education, engineering, and construction. The size of their organizations varied from less than 10 employees to over 500. Additionally, for the purposes of this study, we conducted one-on-one interviews with 14 immigration lawyers, consultants and settlement service providers between November and December 2020. Participants were approached directly using listed contact information from organizational websites as well as with the use of a snowball sampling technique for each subgroup to expand the scope of recruitment.

All data collection was conducted in the Greater Toronto Area. While the first group (HR/hiring managers) was interviewed pre-pandemic, the latter (immigration consultants and settlement service providers) was interviewed some months into the pandemic, giving some insight into EE’s ability to meet the needs of the post-pandemic labor market.

We audio-recorded, transcribed, and verified all interviews. Thematic analysis was then used to 1) gain familiarity with the data; 2) generate initial codes across the data set; 3) identify themes through collating codes; 4) review themes to ensure coherence; 5) name and describe each theme; and finally, 6) generate a report of the analysis (Braun & Clarke 2006). The interview questions were kept deliberately broad. For the HR/manager sample, the questions touched upon labor needs and skills gaps, and whether the current immigrant selection system, and particularly EE, improved employee recruitment and integration. For the immigration specialist sample, we asked for professional insights into the impact of EE on the profile of immigrants entering Canada, whether EE improved newcomers’ ability to contribute to the labor market and addressed the needs of the economy. We documented emerging themes directly from the data, reflecting an inductive approach (Braun & Clarke 2006). NVivo (version 12) was used to facilitate and manage the analysis process.

Findings

Shifting occupational composition of skilled immigrants

Tables 2 and 3 report the top 15 intended occupations (by National Occupational Classification (NOC) code) of principal applicants entering through EE and non-EE streams from 2015 to 2019. Panel A of Table 2 shows that for EE entrants, IT fields consistently comprise the largest occupational cluster. Information systems analysts and consultants, software engineers, and computer programmers and interactive media developers each make up 3-6% of total EE entrants. Another significant occupation cluster is business-related: financial auditors and accountants, financial and investment analysts, professional occupations in advertising, marketing, and public relations, and professional occupations in business management consulting each comprise between 1.0 and 2.8% of landed EE principal applicants each year. University professors and lecturers represent more than 2% annually between 2015 and 2019.

Table 2. Top 15 most common occupations of Express Entry principal applicants landing in Canada, 2015–2019.

Panel A
NOC	Job Title	Skill Levels	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
0124	Advertising, marketing, and public relations managers	0				1.8	2.0
0213	Computer and information systems managers	0				1.6	1.5
0621	Retail and wholesale trade managers	0	1.0	1.3	1.7
0631	Restaurant and food service managers	0	1.3
1111	Financial auditors and accountants	A		2.1	2.1	2.8	3.0
1112	Financial and investment analysts	A	1.0	1.7	1.8	2.2	2.1
1122	Professional occupations in business management consulting	A		1.5		1.8	2.0
1123	Professional occupations in advertising, marketing and public relations	A	1.0	1.9	2.0	2.5	2.3
1311	Accounting technicians and bookkeepers	A					1.5
2171	Information systems analysts and consultants	A	2.7	5.4	6.0	6.4	6.1
2173	Software engineers	A	2.2	3.9	4.9	6.0	6.3
2174	Computer programmers and interactive media developers	A	2.4	4.4	4.7	4.4	4.1
4011	University professors and lecturers	A	1.7	3.0	2.1	2.1	2.1
2132	Mechanical engineers	A		1.5			1.4
1221	Administrative officers	B	1.0		1.7	1.6	1.7
1241	Administrative assistants	B	1.0	1.5	2.4	2.5	2.8
2282	User support technicians	B					1.4
5241	Graphic designers and illustrators	B	2.0	1.9	2.0	1.5
6211	Retail sales supervisors	B	4.2	2.2	1.8
6311	Food service supervisors	B	17.3	4.5	2.5	1.7	1.7
6322	Cooks	B	14.5	4.9	2.1
7271	Carpenters	B	1.0
2282	User support technicians	B			1.9	1.5
	Other		45.7	58.3	60.3	59.6	58.0
	Total landed		5,700	18,300	38,600	51,500	61,500
Panel B: Total percentage by skill level
		Skill levels	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
		0	2.3	1.3	1.7	3.4	3.5
		A	11.0	25.4	23.6	28.2	30.9
		B	41.0	15.0	14.4	8.8	7.6

Source: IMDB 2015-2019. Numbers of observations are rounded to the nearest hundred to maintain confidentiality.

Table 3. Top 15 most common occupations of non-EE economic principal applicants landing in Canada, 2015–2019.

	Panel A
NOC	Job Title	Skill Level	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
0111	Financial managers	0		1.3
0112	Human resources managers	0		1.3
0621	Retail and wholesale trade managers	0			1.0	1.9	1.8
0631	Restaurant and food service managers	0			0.9	1.8	2.1
1111	Financial auditors and accountants	A	1.5	1.6
1112	Financial and investment analysts	A	1.5
1221	Administrative officers	B				0.9	1.0
1225	Purchasing agents and officers	B				0.9
1241	Administrative assistants	B				1.1	2.0
1311	Accounting technicians and bookkeepers	B			0.9	0.9	1.1
2131	Civil engineers	A	1.6	1.4
2132	Mechanical engineers	A	1.8
2133	Electrical and electronics engineers	A	1.4	1.3
2171	Information systems analysts and consultants	A	2.3	1.6	1.1	1.4
2172	Database analysts and data administrators	A		1.3
2173	Software engineers	A	2.0
2174	Computer programmers and interactive media developers	A	2.5	1.4	0.8		1.0
2281	Computer network technicians	B	1.2	1.3
3012	Registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses	A	1.9
4011	University professors and lecturers	A	1.8	1.5
4214	Early childhood educators and assistants	B					1.0
4411	Home child care providers	C	1.3	1.3	2.2	2.7
4412	Home support workers, housekeepers, and related occupations	C			0.8
6211	Retail sales supervisors	B			1.3	2.8	4.9
6311	Food service supervisors	B	2.7	2.2	4.3	7.5	11.4
6322	Cooks	B	2.4	2.5	2.9	3.2	4.3
6421	Retail salespersons	C					1.2
6552	Other customer and information services representatives	C				0.9	1.8
6711	Food counter attendants, kitchen helpers and related support occupations	D	2.4	3.5	3.5	2.8	3.1
6731	Light duty cleaners	D			0.8
7237	Welders and related machine operators	B			1.0
7511	Transport truck drivers	C		1.5	1.9	3.9	5.2
8252	Agricultural service contractors, farm supervisors, and specialized livestock workers	B			0.8		1.4
9462	Industrial butchers and meat cutters, poultry preparers, and related workers	C				1.0	1.7
	Other		71.7	75.0	75.8	66.3	55.0
	Total landed		58,200	37,400	27,400	29,800	25,200
Panel B: Total percentage by skill level
		Skill levels	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
		0	0.0	2.6	1.9	3.7	3.9
		A	18.3	10.1	1.9	1.4	1.0
		B	6.3	6.0	11.2	17.3	27.1
		C	1.3	2.8	4.9	8.5	9.9
		D	2.4	3.5	4.3	2.8	3.1

Source: IMDB 2015–2019. Numbers of observations are rounded to the nearest hundred to maintain confidentiality.

The EE system not only clearly favors high-skill occupations requiring advanced education, it also brings in some occupational clusters in the service sector. Food service supervisors, retail sales supervisors, and cooks are occupations that many EE principal applicants plan to engage in. It is significant to note, however, that the percentage entering with these intended occupations drops over time.

When we aggregate the top 15 intended occupations to NOC skill levels (Panel B, Table 2), most EE principal applicants belong to level A (professional jobs). Starting in 2016, the nine most common level A occupations account for between more than a quarter and close to one third of total EE principal applicants. In addition, the top seven intended level B occupations (technical jobs) account for a large (but decreasing) portion of entrants—the share starts at 15% in 2016 but drops sharply to 7.6% in 2019. In contrast, the top level 0 occupations (management jobs) comprise a minimal fraction of EE principal applicants (1.3% in 2016, with a gradual increase to 3.5% in 2019).

In Panel A of Table 3, we report proportions of the top 15 intended occupations of principal applicants admitted through non-EE economic classes between 2015 and 2019. Intended occupations in service sectors including food service supervisors, cooks, and food counter attendants, kitchen helpers and related support occupations, head the list. For example, the category of food service supervisors takes 3.4% of non-EE economic landed immigrants in 2015, with the share increasing to 6.3% in 2017, 9.3% in 2018, and 11.4% in 2019. The share of IT-, business-related fields and university professors and instructors drops dramatically during this period, suggesting principal applicants who intend to work in those occupations after landing are most likely admitted through the EE system. Other categories emerge to fill the void of these occupational categories, including both higher skilled occupations (e.g., retail and wholesale trade managers and restaurant and food service managers) and lower skilled occupations (e.g., transportation truck drivers, retail sales supervisors, administrative assistants, and accounting technicians and bookkeepers).

Panel B of Table 3 shows the share of the top 12 occupations in level A drops sharply from 24.7% in 2015 to 11.9% in 2016, and then almost flatlines at around 1-2% between 2017 and 2019. However, the top 11 occupations in level B increase dramatically from 8% in 2015 to 27.1% in 2019. Meanwhile, the percentage intending to work in the top six occupations in levels C (not eligible for EE) grows continuously from approximately 2% in 2016, to 9.9% in 2019. Class D, another EE ineligible skill level, counts steadily around 3-4% between 2015 and 2019.

Although the EE system highlights Canada’s marked preference for high-skill immigrants, it is noteworthy that EE principal applicants tend to be more occupationally homogeneous than non-EE principal applicants. As shown in Table 2, the top 15 occupations of EE principal applicants count roughly 40% of total applicants annually, while the top occupations of the non-EE applicants count about 25% to 30% of total applicants. The increasing homogeneity in occupations not only shows up in the most popular intended occupations in both programs, it also reflects in the number of unique 4-digit NOC groups within each track annually. According to the IMDB, the EE program reports 270 unique occupation categories in 2015, increasing slightly above 300 between 2016 and 2019. In comparison, the non-EE program reports more than 400 unique occupations during the same period.

Although Express Entry does not have an eligible occupations list or caps, there are several reasons that EE may narrow the occupational profiles of newcomers. First, as EE increasingly focuses on admitting CEC applicants, it is possible that individuals from particular occupational backgrounds have an advantage. Applicants may be more successful in obtaining pre-landing skilled work experience in Canada (a requirement for CEC) through highly technical positions in fields such as IT. Second, for FSWP applicants applying directly from abroad, EE requires an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) to validate foreign education. It may be that some educational fields are advantaged in the ECA process as they are more likely to be comparable to Canadian qualifications. It is clear that the structure of the CRS and the hybrid model of EE inadvertently favors certain kinds of skills.

Another noteworthy finding is that regulated occupations⁹ such as skilled trades and healthcare related fields are not among the most common intended occupations for both EE and non-EE principal applicants landed between 2015-2019. This is not surprising given the high entry barriers to these fields. Employers in regulated occupations are unlikely to be able to hire temporary foreign workers due to the need for domestic licensure. Therefore, workers from these fields may not qualify for CEC or PNP. As the Canadian immigration system has given preferential access to CEC and PNP applicants particularly during the pandemic, the number of immigrants from regulated fields may decrease further in the future. The lack of applicants in healthcare and skilled trades is concerning given the skills gaps discussed by the key informants in our subsequent qualitative findings.

Express Entry does not fully address the gaps in the labor market

The managers and immigration sector experts we interviewed revealed a complex story about the impact of Express Entry on filling labor market needs.

Many managers reported on-going difficulties filling professional/managerial positions. Yet less than half said they had hired newcomers for such positions in the past 12 months. Many explained their decision to not hire as based on a lack of resources to verify newcomers’ educational credentials and work experience. As one employer stated,

I don’t really have the resources to tackle – ‘Can you call X, Y, and Z school overseas to see what exactly they do for the equivalency side. And is it actually a university or is it a tech school?’ Because again, titles and names of schools these days, they don’t mean as much as they used to.

It is important to note that employers remained skeptical about foreign educational credentials even though most immigrants entering through EE have had their credentials validated through an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) prior to entry. Most of the HR/hiring managers in our sample did not use ECAs as an evaluation tool and were not knowledgeable about ECAs.

In regulated occupations, employers expressed a hesitancy in hiring new immigrants due to slow accreditation processes:

We need to fill this vacancy ASAP. A lot of managers, when they looked at the resume and they didn’t have [accreditation], they would right away just say, ‘You know what, forget it. Because by the time they get their accreditation, it’s going to be too late.’ So they primarily would focus on people that have either gone to school in Canada or the U.S., like a recognized school.

Employers also cited applicants’ poor communication skills and insufficient knowledge of Canadian business practices and organizational culture. As one HR professional recounted,

I’ll be honest, there are managers that I’ve worked with that are very biased towards [new immigrants]. And so, I’ve passed over resumes and right away, ‘No, they’re not going to be a fit.’ And when you probe more, it’s like, ‘Well, they haven’t really worked in Canada, so we’re looking for people with Canadian experience.’

Another employer stated the following with regards to language skills: “Communication skills are key [in our business], especially written communication. You have to be able to write effectively, which means that your English has to be, I would say, above average.”

With regard to hiring for management positions, one employer shared the following in reference to transferability of skills, “He has aspirations of getting into management. He has not had management experience in Canada and that’s something that’s been a challenge for him. He’s had plenty experience overseas, but it just didn’t seem to translate well over here for some reason.”

Particularly noteworthy is that employers seemed not to perceive immigrants arriving through the EE system any differently from those arriving through the earlier economic admission system, even though EE entrants have more formal education and higher language proficiency. Many of the employer participants were not really even aware of the changes that EE introduced. Instead, most employers said they were looking for Canadian industry-specific knowledge when hiring. One interviewee noted:

We’re looking for a certain skillset. …Those [who] pass the initial screening tend to be people that have already been in Canada and have been in the industry obviously.

For newcomers arriving under EE who have Canadian experience, employers’ responses provide more of a contextual explanation of EE entrants’ greater success. At the same time, however, many of the managers expressed concern about the skills of immigrants even if they had Canadian work experience or education. For example, one recounted:

What I find is that most of the international students we hire for engineering positions struggle a lot during their time with us. I was very disappointed with a few international students I hired in the recent years…they were incapable of doing the job. This is very disappointing and a huge waste of resources, because hiring international students requires a lot of paperwork, and after doing a lot work, those students were not even good, and did not have a good work attitude either.

Another employer commented on the persistence of a cultural mismatch despite immigrant employees receiving Canadian education:

Depending on the country that they’re from, they may just have challenges in terms of assimilating from a cultural perspective. In certain parts of the world, if the student comes from that sort of part of the world, they may be a little bit quieter. They may not raise opinions more readily. And then in a Western cultural environment, especially in an office, they may be seen as passive, not as forthcoming with information or thoughts or opinions. And then that might detract from their career progression in the organization.

Finally, a significant number of managers reported that mid- and lower-skill occupations—such as machine service workers, skilled trades, engineering technicians, personal support workers, and early childhood educators—were difficult to fill. For example, one participant commented:

In Canada, we place such emphasis in our immigration programs on skilled immigration, those who have gone to university or the engineers and the doctors – and the skilled trades have really been dropped. We do have a Federal Skilled Trades Program, but it’s not nearly as large in terms of the numbers coming in. And layer on top of that, that the field is regulated by the union hiring halls. So we need to work with the union hiring halls to have essentially them partner with us to bring these people in and use them as a funnel. So there’s all these other partners that we’d probably have to work with quite closely to make this happen.

The preceding comment underscores the complicated process of filling labor shortages, particularly in the skilled trades, and the crucial role of other actors such as labor unions and occupational licensing bodies.

When asked about the future, managers across several industries anticipated labor shortages and recognized the importance of hiring immigrants to address labor needs. One said, “We are experiencing a skills shortage as an industry. Many skilled trades positions will be opening up as baby boomers start to retire, and I’m not sure how we are going to fill these positions.”

The immigration lawyers, consultants, and settlement service providers with whom we spoke similarly expressed concern about how EE requirements restrict eligibility based on skill level, leading to a preference for applicants from a small number of highly technical occupational areas. An immigration lawyer said, “I think we should be attracting people for more than one occupation.” More importantly, many participants in this group thought EE prevents certain types of skills from reaching the Canadian labor market altogether. An immigration lawyer commented:

I think we are still missing a segment of workers that we do need. So for example, in order to sell these high levels of immigration to the Canadian public, we talk about how we only bring in the best of the best. We bring in the brightest, we bring in the best educated with the best language abilities. Well, we don’t necessarily need more HR managers and administrative workers but we do need carpenters and we are not doing a great job of attracting bodies to fill positions that don’t necessarily require these high levels of education or language abilities… So we have this constant shortage of workers in these industries that other Canadians don’t want to train for and don’t want to do.

An immigration consultant similarly stated that EE falls short with respect to low-skill and semi-skilled workers: “I think where [Express Entry] is not serving Canadian employers well is in those semi-skilled [sectors]—so I’m talking retail, I’m talking the hotel industry, I’m talking resorts and I’m talking restaurants.” An immigration lawyer used caregivers as an example of a neglected occupational category under EE: “[By] focus[ing] on high skilled immigrants…we’re neglecting an important and critical part of our economy.”

The settlement sector participants were also quick to point to the inherent inequalities embedded within the EE system. As one settlement expert argued, EE “only attracts people from a certain social class.” In her view, “the Express Entry Program was designed to favor people who are already favored, right? It privileges the privileged.” An immigration consultant defended this type of selection by arguing that “highly educated people that already speak English well [and] have work experience are [easily] integrated into the general fabric of Canadian society.” Yet a participant from the settlement sector asked, “Is that really the society we want long term?”

Overall, our semi-structured interviews with HR professionals/managers, and immigration sector key informants showed gaps between the types of skills EE is bringing into Canada and those employers are looking for. The need for skilled trade workers and semi-skilled workers was a consistent concern. In terms of high-skill workers entering the country, we found employers hesitated to trust foreign skills and experience, especially those hiring for professional or managerial positions. While immigrants with Canadian experience may have advantages over those without such experience, employers were still unsure of their true value. Furthermore, the EE program is both selective and exclusive and, as such, has an impact not just on the Canadian labor market but on the composition of Canadian society as a whole. If skilled newcomers entering through such a selective system continue to face significant barriers in the labor market, not only are their skills squandered, but the reputation of Canada as a leader in immigration is also likely to decline.

Discussion and conclusion

Express Entry, which combines elements of both supply- and demand-driven immigration systems, has demonstrated to be highly responsive and adaptable for admitting immigrants and shows promise for improving labor market outcomes of newcomers in a post-pandemic economy. While Express Entry has some notable benefits including its flexibility, in this mixed-methods study, several “unintended” consequences of EE emerged.

To begin, given that the hybrid ranking system does not necessarily require applicants to hold a job offer when applying for immigration, so the increasing occupational concentration may not accurately reflect the demand of Canadian employers. An unintended result of the adoption of the EE system is that certain skillsets—such as those pertaining to the IT and finance sectors—are structurally favored over others that may be in greater need. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of a wide range of jobs within the economy including those in lower-skill ‘essential’ sectors, particularly in child or elderly caregiving and other services. When EE was initially launched, a few semi-skilled occupations were prevalent, but in more recent years, the numbers have dropped considerably. The increasing occupational homogeneity of newcomers may lead to an oversupply of labor in certain high skilled fields, exacerbating the problem of “brain waste”.

Our qualitative results reveal that although the HR/hiring manager interviewees reported talent shortages, they did not consistently perceive EE newcomers as either having more relevant skills than previous economic immigrants or having the skills needed to fill shortages. At the same time, they expressed increasing concern about growing labor shortages particularly in the skilled trades and service sector jobs. We argue that in the post-pandemic economy the optimal solution is to bring in a mix of immigrants of various skill levels and in a variety of occupational fields instead of admitting high-skill individuals in a limited range of occupations.

Policymakers have recognized the skill mismatch within the current system and established new skill-based pathways. The majority of the NOC codes targeted by the special streams established during the pandemic are healthcare, agricultural, and manufacturing occupations in skill levels C and D (i.e., lower skilled occupations). These measures are important because of their recognition of lower-skill labor shortages but they tend to be time-limited, small-scale programs that are “patchwork” solutions attempting to address systemic issues within EE, and the immigration system more generally. The impacts of these new programs have yet been fully evaluated.

It is important to note that even a hybrid system like Express Entry may not be able to fully address the skills gaps and labor shortages in the post-pandemic labor market since they do not capture the specific soft skills that are deemed to be crucial by employers. Instead, pre-arrival Canadian work experience/education are used as rough proxies for soft skills. Based on our qualitative investigation, this does not appear to be particularly effective, either because international students and temporary foreign workers fail to acquire the necessary soft skills as temporary residents or because employers’ perceptions of soft skills are influenced by implicit and/or explicit bias against “foreignness”. Given that soft skills are ill-defined and often elusive (Grugulis & Vincent 2009), it is difficult to disentangle whether the soft skills gap can be remedied through immigrant selection. In sum, while the EE program selects immigrants in high skilled occupations, the EE program is not a panacea for the skills shortages in the Canadian labor market going forward.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, EE has been focused on programs for admitting applicants who are already residing in Canada, through streams such as the PNP and the CEC. This allowed the government of Canada to achieve its immigration targets, but it also generated substantial backlogs within other streams, especially the Federal Skilled Workers Program (FSWP), which is the predominant program for applicants without Canadian experience. The focus on these immigration streams favoring domestic experience could potentially suggest that Canadian economic immigration admissions have become de facto “two-step”. This move may create a negative narrative for Canadian immigration policy: you can only immigrate to Canada if you are already here.

Finally, a wider discussion around the ethics of economic immigrant selection is warranted, especially against the backdrop of the pandemic and the global inequalities that have been highlighted as a result. The concerns expressed by some of the immigration experts and settlement workers with whom we spoke around the privilege, selectivity, and exclusivity of the EE system should be considered—along with one participant’s question as to whether this is “really the society we want long term?” Furthermore, given that most immigrants who enter Canada are arriving from the Global South, we must consider the impact of human capital flight on sending countries which may be further exacerbated by post-pandemic conditions. While the consequences of COVID-19 on global migration patterns are still being tracked and evaluated, it is undeniable that the pandemic has tested the limits of existing immigration selection systems, as well as re-articulated wider socio-political processes in ways that are still unfolding and becoming apparent.

Canada’s experience with EE can provide lessons to other countries instituting hybrid immigrant selection systems in the post-pandemic era. While flexibility and adaptability are strengths of the hybrid system, there may be unintended consequences of prioritizing pre-landing domestic experience. Moreover, the inclusion of employer input does not guarantee successful labor market integration. In fact, immigrant selection policy on its own is unlikely to be able to effectively address post-pandemic labor market needs. Stakeholders such as employers, labor unions, occupational licensing bodies, and settlement service providers must play an active role in providing avenues for integration so that newcomers can more fully contribute their skills.

Abbreviations:
CEC	=	Canadian Experience Class
CRS	=	Comprehensive Ranking System
ECA	=	Educational Credential Assessment
EE	=	Express Entry
EOI	=	Expression of Interest
FSTP	=	Federal Skilled Trade Program
FSWP	=	Federal Skilled Worker Program
IMDB	=	Longitudinal Immigration Database
IRCC	=	Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
NOC	=	National Occupational Classification
OECD	=	Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
PGWP	=	Post-graduation Work Permit
PR	=	Permanent residence
PNP	=	Provincial Nominee Program
TFW	=	Temporary Foreign Workers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (435-2017-1125).

Notes

1 https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/f7e5498e-0ad8-4417-85c9-9b8aff9b9eda

2 https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/notices/supplementary-immigration-levels-2021-2023.html

3 Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada, often abbreviated as the IRCC, is a department of the federal government that presides over immigration to Canada, the permitting of refugee status and citizenship, and the provision of settlement programming for newcomers.

4 Some PNP streams operate outside EE. Non-EE provincial nominees submit a paper-based application directly to their province/territory of choice.

5 For candidates with an accompanying spouse or common-law partner, up to 460 points are awarded for the human capital of principal applicants and up to 40 points for the human capital of spouses/partners.

6 Note: while high-skilled temporary workers who arrive through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program have a good chance at meeting the requirements for PR through Express Entry (as part of the “two-step immigration process”), lower skilled temporary foreign workers are often deemed ineligible (Esses et al. 2021).

7 https://www.cicnews.com/2021/02/saturday-surprise-canada-invites-27332-express-entry-candidates-in-bold-move-0217162.html#gs.abxh79

8 As part of the larger project, interviews were conducted with newcomer participants, along with the HR professionals/manager interviews discussed in the current article. The authors gathered this data with the intention of exploring employer and newcomer perspectives on integration within the current Canadian immigration context. Newcomer interviewees were asked about their labor market experiences after entering Canada as skilled immigrants through EE, while employer-side interviewees were asked about their labor needs, organizational policies on immigrant hiring, and perceptions of the current immigration system (EE).

9 Regulated occupations in the Canadian context refer to professions and trades that require a license to practice. Licenses are issued by profession-specific governing bodies upon meeting criteria that ensure standards of practice and competency.