Work experience qualifies for Express Entry

Work experience is considered for Express Entry when it is considered a ” specialty ” according to the Canadian job classification system.

When Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) evaluates your work experience, it also considers the level of education required for the job.

Usually, the higher the education and experience required for the desired job position, the higher your professional skill level will be. Canada currently measures occupational skill levels based on the 2016 National Occupational Classification (NOC).

For economic group immigration, IRCC generally uses the NOC to gauge the extent to which a particular immigration applicant’s work experience supports the immigration program being applied for.

Economic Group immigration programs are specifically designed to fill job positions with foreign talent to support Canada’s labor market and improve the country’s long-term future.

In the case of Express Entry, specific occupations are not as important as skill levels. When evaluating your application, IRCC will match the job duties to the NOC job description to determine whether the job is considered a specialty or not.

There are five NOC skill levels available on the Government of Canada website:

Skill type • (zero):

Management jobs such as managers of restaurants, mines and ship captains (fishing).

• Level A skill:

Professional jobs that usually require a college degree, such as doctors, dentists, and architects

• Level B skill:

Technical jobs and technical expertise are common

Require a college diploma or apprenticeship, such as chefs, plumbers and electricians

C level skill:

Mid-level jobs that usually require a high school diploma and/or job-specific training, such as industrial butchers, long-haul truck drivers, food and beverage servers

• Level D skill:

Labor occupations that require on-the-job training, such as fruit pickers, cleaners, and oilfield workers, are the only occupations that fall into Skill Types 0, A, and B for Express Entry to be considered “specialized.”

To be eligible for one of the three Express Entry immigration programs, you must have work experience. The amount of work experience required depends on the type of program you are applying for.

IRCC considers a “full-time” job to be equivalent to 30 hours per week, for a total of 1,560 hours in a year. These hours can be obtained in different ways, such as working full-time for a year or working part-time.

For part-time jobs, you can work less than 15 hours per week until the total reaches 1,560 hours. IRCC does not include hours worked for more than 30 hours per week. Therefore, you cannot qualify faster by working more hours.

Also, in order to be considered for Express Entry programs, the entire work experience must have been paid. Volunteer work and unpaid internships are not counted.