Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) Intend to Create a New Skilled Trades Program

Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) plans to unveil a modernized Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) later this year. As per Citizenship & Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney, Canada is experiencing severe shortage of skilled person in certain trade person mainly in construction & natural resources fields. To fill this shortage of skilled trade occupations, Canada is planning to introduce New Skilled Trades Program. This is part of the series of steps taken by Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) to make Canada immigration faster, secure and job oriented.

Current selection process of Federal Skilled Worker is based on point based system in which applicant is assessed as per certain selection factors including education, age, work experience, language skills, job offer and adaptability. Trade occupations are included in current National Occupation List but problem is that, many experienced trade persons do not pass the selection process due to constraints of certain selection factors like education & high English proficiency. Due to standardized selection process, professionals and managers more likely get immigration and trade persons only make up 3% of the total Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) applications. The new skilled trades program will encourage trade persons with extensive apprenticeships and work experience rather than with formal qualifications.

Conducting several surveys and consultations with stakeholders of Federal Skilled Worker class, CIC consider it serious to implement such immigration system which should be more accessible to trade persons. Point grid will be altered and made lenient for trade persons but they must have to meet minimum English language requirements so immigration system should remain valuable for future of Canada.

If approved, all details will be announced later in 2012. A full detail of changes in point system and selection factors of Federal Skilled Workers will also be published on the web.