While mass deportation plans took center stage during the final months of the 2024 election, President-elect Trump also expressed support for a merit-based immigration system during his campaign. Merit-based immigration is a system wherein applicants are allotted points or are ranked based on age, job offers, and advanced degrees. As the United States faces workforce challenges, studying Canada’s Express Entry program could provide valuable insights for addressing labor shortages without overhauling existing immigration frameworks.
What is Express Entry?
Launched in 2015, Canada’s Express Entry program is a two-stage, points-based system that replaced the first-come-first-serve approach for skilled immigration into the country. The program is designed to attract high-skilled workers who meet specific economic and labor market demands. As a centralized gateway, it streamlines applications for high-skilled permanent economic immigration programs. By reducing bureaucracy and shortening wait times, the system prioritizes candidates with qualifications that align with Canada’s economic priorities. It operates as a points-based system wherein candidates earn points for various factors deemed valuable to the Canadian economy.
After submitting a profile with their key information, applicants are evaluated by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the agency responsible for managing immigration. The IRCC calculates each applicant’s score based on skills, work experience, education, and personal attributes. Each year, the Canadian government establishes a minimum threshold score for various immigration pathways. Applicants who meet or exceed this score are invited to apply for permanent residency.
A major advantage of the Express Entry program is that it does not require employer sponsorship, though applicants can earn additional points for having a job offer from a company in Canada. The program also boasts processing times of 6 to 12 months and an application fee of just over $1,000. In contrast, obtaining employment-based permanent residency in the U.S. upon transitioning from a temporary work visa (such as the H-1B) requires sponsorship by an employer, is subject to country and annual caps, can take up to 84 years in extreme cases, and costs a minimum of $2000.
What characteristics are prioritized in the Express Entry system?
The Express Entry program awards maximum points to individuals between 20 and 29, reflecting the Canadian government’s preference for younger individuals likely to integrate into the economy, contribute over the long term, and adapt to the socio-cultural environment.
Education also plays a significant role in the scoring system, with higher points allocated to applicants with advanced degrees, particularly those earned in Canada. Additionally, applicants must demonstrate English or French language proficiency through standardized test results taken within the past two years, contributing to their overall score.
Applicants can earn additional points based on their years of work experience, with extra points for experience gained within Canada. Other factors that enhance the likelihood of successful assimilation, such as having a sibling who is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, can also boost an applicant’s score.
The system is also designed to adapt to evolving labor market needs. In 2023, it introduced “category-based selection,” which prioritizes individuals with high-demand skills or attributes, such as proficiency in French or work experience in critical sectors like healthcare, STEM, and transport. While these applicants are still subject to the overall points-based ranking system, the cut-off scores for these specific categories are often lower, making it easier for them to qualify.
Impact on Canada’s economy
The Express Entry system has enabled Canada to respond to labor market needs with unprecedented flexibility, as it can prioritize candidates with high-demand skills by altering the overall threshold score for specific programs or categories.
For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, while the U.S. healthcare system struggled with severe labor shortages, the Canadian government used Express Entry to swiftly address workforce gaps. It admitted 20,000 healthcare workers and 30,000 non-healthcare essential workers, demonstrating the program’s agility in responding to sudden labor market disruptions and critical needs.
The Express Entry system is designed to attract immigrants with in-demand skills and supports programs that direct skilled immigrants to specific regions. This allows the Canadian government to channel economic activity and labor into communities that stand to benefit the most.
The metrics used to prioritize immigrants through Express Entry are not merely theoretical measures of economic integration. Data from the IRCC shows that immigrants who entered Canada through the program in 2015 and 2016 were nine percentage points more likely to be employed, 18 percentage points more likely to work in professions requiring university education, and earned 20% more on average within a year of arrival compared to those who immigrated through other pathways.
Despite its success, the program has faced criticism for its limited focus on addressing shortages in lower-skilled occupations and its lack of robust pathways to permanent residency for essential foreign workers in temporary roles, such as agricultural workers.
Another potential drawback of the program is its shift in focus from employment offers to human capital factors. In the program’s early years, a significant portion of the overall points were allocated for having a job offer from a Canadian employer. However, this factor now constitutes a much smaller proportion of the total points available, instead focusing on personal traits that can be used as predictors of success. As a result, while the Express Entry was initially aimed at responding to employers’ needs, the current scoring system focuses overwhelmingly on human capital as the best indicator for potential success in the Canadian workforce.
Key takeaways for the U.S.
Canada’s previous skilled immigration system had significant drawbacks, hindering employers from hiring skilled workers for the Canadian economy. This isn’t unlike the workforce challenges that the U.S. is currently facing.
For example, international students seeking to remain in the U.S. after graduation often do so through the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program and then try their luck in the H-1B visa lottery, which is predominantly arbitrary and only has a slight merit-based element (a proportion of the visas being reserved for individuals who obtained a master’s degree in the U.S.). However, with a selection rate of about 25%, the vast majority of applicants never get the opportunity to present their qualifications to immigration officials.
The Canadian immigration system and economy have been benefiting from these shortcomings of the current U.S. immigration system. In July 2023, the country capitalized on U.S. immigration uncertainties by introducing a work permit for H-1B visa holders, offering America’s high-skilled migrants a more reliable pathway to geographical and professional stability.
Furthermore, between 2017 and 2021, approximately 45,000 skilled workers who received their education in the U.S. were invited to immigrate to Canada through the Express Entry program, with 88% being non-U.S. citizens. This highlights the U.S.’s failure to retain international talent despite needing skilled workers to address labor market needs. The current U.S. immigration system is primarily based on family reunification and employer-sponsored immigration, which does not directly address the country’s evolving economic needs. The U.S. may benefit from understanding more about programs that can directly address workforce shortages and ensure that critical industries in the U.S. are not facing workforce shortages. A system like the Express Entry program – which was introduced within the existing immigration framework to reduce backlogs and other efficiencies – provides an example of such a program.
If the U.S. seeks to draw lessons from the implementation of the Entry program, one key consideration would be balancing its employer-sponsored, demand-driven employment visa system with human capital factors. Transitioning to a purely points-driven system could be difficult given the U.S.’s existing immigration framework, which has traditionally avoided closely monitoring labor market conditions or adjusting immigration policies to address emerging domestic needs—something Canada has effectively managed. However, opportunities exist to integrate more human capital considerations into the skilled immigration process. By leveraging labor market evidence, the U.S. could refine its priorities and align immigration policies with current workforce demands within its existing framework.