EXPERIENCE FACTOR

This factor is both “crucial” and “not highly significant” at the same time. It is a crucial factor because to be eligible for Federal Skilled Worker Class selection, the applicant MUST have at least one year of High Skill work experience. There is no exception to this rule. High Skill work experience is ANY work experience in ANY occupation described in the National Occupation Classification (NOC) at Skill Level B or A or Skill Type O. Skill Type Occupations are Management Occupations: e.g. Sales Managers, Retail Managers, General Managers. Level A could be described as the Professional occupations: e.g. Accountants, Teachers, Nurses, Doctors. Level B might be described as Professional Support occupations: e.g. Secretaries, Sales Supervisors, Bookkeepers, and Skilled Trades occupations like Mechanics and Technicians, Plumbers and Pipe fitters, and, of course, Carpenters (like the Minister’s father).

There is no longer a General Occupation List, like under the old rules, where some occupations were on the List and some were not, supposedly on the basis of the “labour market demand” for those occupations. Such occupations were assigned points from 1 to 10 depending on what CIC considered to be the demand in 1993! Now ALL occupations at Skill Level B and above are eligible for Experience factor points, and there is no distinction between the occupations. Thus, a Secretary is equal to a Computer Programmer or the General Manager of a major (or minor) corporation. The concept of “labour market demand” has been totally eliminated, now the criterion is Skill Level.

Therefore, lower skill occupation, such as bank clerks, office clerks, typists, non-technical sales persons, hospitality industry or travel industry workers (e.g. food and beverage servers or travel agents) and customer service representatives are not eligible to apply in the Skilled Worker Class. But note that the Supervisors of such lower skill occupation workers ARE eligible to apply, because Supervisors are High Skill occupations.

But the Experience factor is not highly significant because the differential is only 6 points between the minimum award (15 points for 1 year of experience) and the maximum award (21 points for 4 years of experience). Further, to gain additional points, it is necessary only to keep on working in a high skill occupation. The application process takes many, many months and often years to be completed. An applicant who submits an application on the basis of 2 years high skill work experience may have 3 or 4 years work experience to his or her credit by the time of the initial assessment by the visa officer. If a personal interview is required, that requirement means that many many more months or years will go by before the interview takes place, so it is quite likely that the maximum points for 4 years of work experience will be awarded to many applicants.