20,000 annual cap on Skilled Workers

[anitsirK]

My husband pointed this article out to me, and I was wondering if any of you have heard about the changes, and what your thoughts are on it.

http://news.therecord.com/article/735752

Quote:The federal government will cap at 20,000 annually the number of visa applications from skilled immigrants in an attempt to reduce the backlog.
...
As part of the changes, the number of occupations eligible for the federal skilled worker program has also been reduced from 38 to 29.

Due to an oversupply in the job market, 20 of the original 38 job categories have been removed, including managers in finances, computer and information systems, health care and construction, as well as university professors and college and vocational instructors.

They are being replaced with 11 new occupations: social workers, psychologists, dental hygienists and therapists, pharmacists, dentists, architects, biologists and related scientists, insurance adjusters and claims examiners, primary industry production managers (except those in agriculture) and professions in business services and management.
...
The Immigration Department will also cap the number of applications in each occupation at 1,000; the applications will be processed on a first-come-first-served basis. These instructions and restrictions are effective until June 30, 2011.

[morphia]

Interesting, I had no idea they had that many skilled workers coming in the first place!
I also saw a notice on the CIC website that they are putting more emphasis on trying to get those skilled workers applications out of the backlog. I wonder if that will affect the workload in the family app's? Or are they completely separate offices?

[CatherineM]

We had a water pipe burst and flood our apartment 3 weeks ago, and we are still sitting in an empty apartment with bare studs and bare concrete floors waiting for our name to come to the top of the insurance adjuster's or the contractor's list. So, I think they have their priorities right for once.