fkl said:
Assuming they are able to keep to their plans. With the scale and details of new things in place, some stuff would definitely have gone wrong and it would take them time to settle down. I hate to hurt others, but i won't be surprised if first draw is some what delayed. Let's hope it doesn't get affected much overall
They launched without the Job Board being ready - I think they are more likely to try to make timelines and reduce scope.
Their Questions and Answers section states:
Under Express Entry, labour market demand, in the form of a job offer supported by a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) or a nomination by a province or territory will provide candidates with enough additional points and be ranked high enough to be invited to apply at the next eligible draw of candidates.
They don't state that they may have enough points, rather that they state that it will. For that to be the case, it would be likely that the number will be under 600 (which would then guarantee the extra 600 always worked). Someone with 1 point + a Job Offer will get it, 100% of the time. If the number were something like 1000, their statement would likely be incorrect for some cases.
My guess (for what it's worth) is that they will select a fairly small number for the first draw, enough to clear out all the 600+ scores, and a couple percent of the Express Entry pool. The job board isn't ready, people have been having problems, a bunch of people are waiting on their ECAs, etc., and they sent an email out saying that sending your profile in early wouldn't help. Obviously, if you wait 3 months you will not be eligible for the three months of draws, but I wonder if they really want all the early applicants getting picked. So, they might take a small percentage, and use that to figure out their points requirement. 5th percentile, maybe? Later draws would be larger, as they would have given people more time, and had more time to ramp up and fix issues.
If that were the case, I'd expect the points threshold to be around 480 (given the spreadsheet) for the first draw. That's just my speculation. We'll see.