How Many People Had Points Removed For Arranged Employment – And What Does That Mean for the CRS Cut-Off?

In short, the data reveals that there were 37,170 candidates in the Express Entry pool on March 19 2025 who had 50-200 points for arranged employment.  These candidates will have since had those points removed following IRCC’s elimination of points for a job offer in the Express Entry system. But, the data gives us a valuable look into how many people were claiming points for a job offer, which countries this change impacts the most, and what the CRS cut off might look like in future rounds.

The Data from IRCC on Arranged Employment 

Full credit for this data goes to Burcu Akyol, Registered Canadian Immigration Consultant. You can find the original post on LinkedIn here, and embedded below:  

Some Quick Insights on the Data 

The top ten countries where candidates with arranged job offers in the Express Entry pool are from, based on their citizenship, are: 

1. India  
2. Philippines  
3. China  
4. Mexico  
5. South Korea  
6. Pakistan  
7. Brazil  
8. Nigeria  
9. British  
10. Vietnam.  

Many of these countries also appear on the list of the top ten source countries for permanent residents in Canada in 2024, which included India, Philippines, China, Cameroon, Nigeria, Eritrea, Pakistan, Iran, Colombia, and Afghanistan.  

Digging Deeper: What This Data Means About the CRS Cut Off in 2025 

In practice, this change means that there will be 37,170 people in the pool whose CRS score will decrease by either 50 points or 200 points before the next draw. Overall, it’s expected that this will lead to a decrease in the CRS points cut-off for the upcoming Express Entry rounds. But is that actually likely? Let’s take a look…  

Will There Be Fewer People with 501-600 CRS Points in the Express Entry Pool?  

We don’t have exact figures on the number of people in the pool on March 19, but if we extrapolate from the data we published on the state of the Express Entry pool on March 16, we can assume there were around 237,000 people in the pool and 25,522 with a score of 501-600. 

We do know that people who met the criteria for additional points for arranged employment made up around 19% of overall invitations to apply in 2023. We’ll use this to dig into the real impact on the pool in 2025. 

If we assume that 20% of people with a score of 501-600 have points for a job offer and that their points are below 520 (we don’t have this data, it is a large assumption for illustrative purposes), then that would move 5,104 candidates below the 470 points mark.  

We make this assumption on the basis that those with more than 520 points and Canadian work experience would have likely been selected in a previous round.  

This still leaves 20,000 or more candidates in the pool with over 500 CRS points for the upcoming rounds. A high proportion of these candidates will have Canadian work experience and be eligible for the Canadian Experience Class, so are likely to receive an invitation in coming rounds. As a result, we do think it’s likely that the CRS score will remain elevated at 500 or higher for at least a few rounds.  

That being said, we would love to be wrong here. It’s possible that more than 20% of the 501-600 category had points for arranged employment – especially since IRCC had identified LMIA fraud as a major issue in 2024.   But the 20% figure does align closely with the percentage of people who were invited to apply for Express Entry in 2021-2023 who received points for arranged employment. 

To summarise:

20% of the candidates with a score of 501-600 likely have points for a job offer. (This is an assumption based on past years’ data)

20% of 25,522 = 5,104.4

So, 5,104 people with a score 0f 501-520 will see a decrease of at least 50 points.

This leave 20,000 candidates with a score of 501+ in the pool.

We estimate the CRS will stay above 500 through to at least June 2025, even if we see draws of 3,000-4,000 every other week.  

To stress test our stance even further, even if we assume that 50% of candidates in the 501-520 range who haven’t received an invitation yet for CEC in 2025 had an offer for arranged employment, there would still be around 12,500 candidates in the pool with a score of over 500. While we are ‘due’ for a large Canadian Experience Class draw, it would need to be a historically large draw to drop below 500 CRS points for the cut off.

Potential For The CRS Cut Off To Decrease After June 2025 

If IRCC continues larger draws at around the 3,000-4,000 mark and if we aren’t too far off on our estimations of the impact of the removal of job offer points on the Express Entry pool composition, we would expect to see points drop below 500 by around June or July of this year.  

One consideration is that we expect that there is a moderate to high number of people learning French to improve their scores. This may inflate the number of people who have a score above 501 by the latter part of this year, which could keep scores high – despite French category draws.  

The Impact on Those Who Had 200 Points for Arranged Employment 

Federal Skilled Workers with 200 Points 

The number of people sitting in the Federal Skilled Worker pool with 200+ arranged employment points but hadn’t received an invitation makes sense – since IRCC hasn’t held a general draw inviting FSWs in quite some time. These workers would need to be eligible for a category-based draw or they would need to receive a provincial nomination to receive an invitation. So, we aren’t surprised to see a backlog there.  

Unfortunately, with the points removed and no end in sight for Canada’s ‘in-Canada’ immigration focus, these candidates will likely need to learn French to come to Canada in the near term.  

Canadian Experience Class Candidates 

As for those who were in the Canadian Experience Class pool with 200 points for arranged employment and hadn’t yet received an invitation, there may be a long road ahead to receive an invitation through Canada’s Express Entry system.  

This could look like someone who is single, 45 years old, with a 2-year degree outside Canada, CLB 7 English, and 3 years Canadian experience and 3 years foreign work experience and a CRS score of 318 points. This person would not have received an invitation in recent times, even with a 200-point boost for a NOC 00 position at a Canadian company. Without the 200 points, their score of 318 is not likely to be high enough to receive an invitation in a Canadian Experience Class round in 2025 (though, it is possible if IRCC holds very large rounds).  

Need help keeping up with the latest immigration changes? Subscribe to our Express Entry newsletter to stay in the loop.

Next Steps for Newcomers

We typically advocate for working on what you can control to improve your score, regardless of what’s going on at IRCC. But the recent announcement and pause may be a loose exception to that rule.

It’s still a good time to improve your language results, start a French language course, or to consider a study program. But if you’re sitting in the high 400s and have time on your side, a wait and see approach may work out for you.