The year 2019 starts with new records and new accomplishments as IRCC stated that the start of first draw of Express Entry included 3,900 invitations to apply for permanent residency. The government also started considering candidates with a minimum score of 449 in the point’s grid system of eligibility and started issuing invitations to apply.
This number has been the highest since the start of Express Entry 5 years ago and IRCC has stated that previous year’s record of 89,900 ITA’s will be broken this year. Express Entry includes programs like Federal Skilled Worker Class, Federal Skilled Trades Class and Canadian Experience Class. Candidates are scored on the basis of Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS), which helps to choose the highest ranking candidates who are further issued an invitation to apply for PR status.

The start of this year also marked the usage of the Tie Break Rule on January 10th, which is basically a procedure helping and prioritizing candidates whose profiles have been in a pool for a long period of time. This led to such a big number of candidates successfully obtaining permanent residencies. So candidates with score above 449 and candidates with scores of 449 who applied for their profiles in the Express Entry pool before the given date and time received ITA in the opening rounds of selection. The numbers have sky rocketed if we look in the past, as in 2015, there were only 779 entries in January which is now touching 3,900 in the first month of 2019. Here is the graph given on the website for ITA’s issued in All-Program Express Entry Draws as given on the official website.