Applicants applying from Sydney, Australia

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the processing timeline of your Federal Skilled Worker application.

Changes to immigration law in 2008 allow Citizenship and Immigration (CIC) to set, through ministerial instructions, the number and type of applications considered for processing each year, and the order in which these applications will be processed.  You may have been sent several letters since the 2008 implementation of the Ministerial Instructions to keep you up to date with the changes and why your application is in the inventory of cases waiting to be processed.

We have received enough federal skilled worker applications since February 27, 2008 to reach our immigration levels for the next two years. Because they reflect Canada's current labour market needs, applications under the most recent set of ministerial instructions are processed on a priority basis. Therefore, few federal skilled worker applications received before February 27, 2008 will be processed this year or next.

The exception is the small number of cases where federal skilled worker applicants have received instructions on their medical examinations. These applicants should receive a final decision within 12 months of completing their medical examination.

The Action Plan for Faster Immigration has helped reduce application backlogs and wait times. Before the Action Plan was introduced, Canada had a backlog of over 640,000 people in the federal skilled worker category waiting as long as six years to be processed. In just three years, we've been able to get more than 300,000 people out of the line-up - that's close to half those who were waiting.