Over 200,000 international students in Canada will face the expiration of their work permits by the end of 2025, with many of them finding it difficult to obtain permanent residency during this period due to recent changes in immigration policy.
According to new figures by the Globe and Mail from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, there are currently 203,260 international students holding postgraduate work permits that will expire in the next 15 months.
Nearly 70,000 of these permits are due to expire between September 1 and December 31, 2024, VisaGuide.World reports.
Postgraduate work permits (PGWPs) are issued to international students who complete a diploma or degree at a Canadian college or university, lasting from nine months to three years.
Federal data further revealed that by the end of August this year, there were 471,810 PGWP holders, more than three times the number from 2018. However, as the number of people seeking permanent residency (PR) grew, policy changes during the pandemic inadvertently complicated the process for PGWP holders to transition to PR status.
PGWP Extensions Ended Amid Permanent Residency Backlog
In response to the pandemic, Ottawa ended a policy that had provided 18-month extensions for PGWPs to address labor shortages. These extensions would have allowed individuals with expiring permits to wait for the backlog of PR applications that built up during the pandemic.
Historical data from Statistics Canada shows that between 2016 and 2020, about 40 percent of PGWP holders received PR status within two years of their work permit. In contrast, between 2011 and 2015, 73 percent obtained permanent residency within five years.
Aissa Diop, director of communications for Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, stated that the government’s current immigration policy aims to reduce the number of temporary residents while stabilizing the number of permanent residents.
Canada aims to admit 485,000 permanent residents in 2024, 500,000 in 2025, and another 500,000 in 2026. This year, Ottawa plans to grant permanent residency to 110,770 applicants in the Express Entry pool, the main pathway for PGWP holders, with that number increasing to 117,500 next year.
We have hundreds of thousands of people coming to Canada, many of them international students, with the expectation that they will obtain permanent residency.
Last year, Canada welcomed over one million study permit holders, a significant rise from 352,305 in 2015. This surge marked one of the highest numbers of international students, with more than one million study permit holders across primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels—an increase of 151 percent.