Leading migration experts, VisaFirst.com, have this week claimed that they have been inundated with calls from Irish workers wanting to travel to Canada, looking for clarification on changes to the application process for the Canadian working visa programme.
The migration experts say that the changes, in fact, open up the visa programme to more people, but that people are unaware of this and are holding off on applying for a Canadian and are actually looking at other destinations instead.
Last year, the quota was opened in two tranches. When the first quota opening it was operated on a first come first serve basis which lead to a flurry of hopeful working holiday applicants applying for visas and the quota being filled in a matter of minutes in Ireland, UK, France and a number of participating countries.
However, of those who did apply within the time slot of 10 minutes, less than a third actually took up their places and went on the year to Canada. This in turn freed up spaces for others later in the year, but a lot of people had made alternative arrangements to travel to work in other countries at that stage.
This year, however, all applicants can enter the pool and those who apply today have the same chance as those who entered the pool the day the quota opened. The places will be granted on an ad hoc basis over the next few months.
Manager & Migration Expert with www.visafirst.com, Edwina Shanahan says, "There is still an appetite to travel to Canada amongst Irish workers – though it is lessening somewhat this year.
"However, we are advising those who think they want to look for work in Canada to apply now for the visa, because while the quota is now open we do not know when this will close – and Canadian immigration has yet to give any indication."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
