Express Entry Draw 332: 1,350 CEC Candidates Issued Invitations on January 8, 2025

Key Takeaways for Express Entry Candidates

• Type of draw: Canadian Experience Class
• Invitations issued: 1,350
• CRS score: 542
• Tie-breaking rule: December 07, 2024 at 01:10:06 UTC
• Prediction for the next draw: Potentially a French category-based draw on Thursday January 9, 2024.
• New to the excitement of Express Entry draws? Check out our guide to Express Entry.

Our Analysis of This Express Entry Draw

After a very uncertain December in 2024, those with Canadian work experience will be pleased to see that CEC draws have resumed in 2025. It looks like the delay in CEC draws was due to the changes relating to points for job offers, since Canada’s government announced it will eliminate points for arranged employment in Spring 2025 in an announcement on December 23, 2024.

It’s also possible it was related to the front loading of Canadian Experience Class draws earlier in 2024 to cover those with expiring Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP), as IRCC outlined in an undated memo shared on LinkedIn last week. You can learn more about that here.   

Now, onto today’s draw — at 1,350 invitations, it is a good-sized draw. It will be very welcome to those who were holding out for a Canadian Experience Class draw in December 2024.

But, the CRS is extremely high at 542. And given the level of competition in the pool at the 501-600 point range, the score is unlikely to decrease in the near term — unless we see a huge draw.

And unless we see an unexpected large draw, we are likely looking at a bumpy ride ahead for Canadian Experience Class candidates. On January 7, 2025, there were just over 23,000 candidates in the pool with a score of 501-600. Today, IRCC notes that there are 23,240 candidates with a score between 501-600, an increase of over 220 in 24 hours. This portion of the pool likely contains a high portion of Canadian Experience Class candidates – many of whom will have studied in Canada and/or arranged employment in Canada. As we mentioned, these candidates will lose their points for the arranged employment if they haven’t been drawn prior to Spring 2025. 

So, if this is you, we suggest doing what you can in the short term to improve your CRS and receive an invitation before the points for arranged employment are eliminated. Your language proficiency results are the lowest hanging fruit here, and we suggest retaking your language test if possible to improve your results. 

In case you missed it, yesterday’s PNP draw was very small but did not show the same levels of high competition that today’s CEC draw did. This small draw was unsurprising given that Canada plans to massively decrease its PNP allocation for 2025.

What Does 2025 Hold for CEC Express Entry Draws?

Today’s draw marks the first Canadian Experience Class Express Entry draw in 2025, and we hope it’s the first of many. Given Canada plans to focus on transitioning temporary residents currently in Canada (and presumably with Canadian work experience) to permanent residency, we hope to see bi-weekly draws around this size each time. 

However, we have stated that we don’t predict that the score will drop much below 500-510, and that’s after points are dropped for job offers in Spring 2025.

Remember — there is a positive note: the immigration levels plan includes a special allocation of 82,980 spots for applicants already in Canada. We expect that a significant portion of these admissions will go to in-Canada applicants who might have otherwise applied through a PNP. For more details on the 2025 PNP targets, you can read our in-depth analysis here.

For more information:

• Learn more about the latest Express Entry draws.
• Learn more about the state of the Express Entry pool.
• Learn when to expect the next Express Entry draw.
• Use our online Express Entry CRS calculator to learn more about your current score and how to improve it.

For up-to-date information about Express Entry draws, consider creating a free Moving2Canada account and subscribing to our newsletter. We share news about the draws and our analysis as it happens, so you’ll never miss the latest results.