Canada’s immigration system will overhaul the way it classifies occupations in fall 2022.
The changes will affect some economic class and foreign worker applicants, although the federal government has yet to communicate which sorts of applicants will be affected.
Canada’s system for categorizing occupations is called the National Occupational Classification (NOC). The NOC is reviewed every year, and updated every five years to ensure it reflects Canada’s changing labour market. It gets overhauled about every 10 years, making the new edition the biggest upgrade since 2011. Statistics Canada released its new NOC 2021 publication last month.
The NOC is important for Canadian immigration since it is used by federal and provincial governments to manage skilled worker immigration programs and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). An immigrant or temporary foreign worker must meet the NOC eligibility criteria of the program they are applying to.