If you are an immigrant or you are looking to immigrate to Canada, you must be aware of the National Occupational Classification (NOC). Canada’s immigration system uses NOC to classify jobs based on skills which are in turn used by the government to manage skilled worker immigration programs and temporary foreign worker programs. Individuals are required to meet the eligibility criteria to qualify to the programs that they are applying to. The requirements are individually specified for each of the programs.
The NOC gets reviewed every year, updated every 5 years, and revised every 10 years to keep up with and to better reflect the current labor market requirements. As of date, the jobs / work experience is assessed against the 2016 version of the NOC by IRCC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) for skilled worker immigration programs and by ESDC (Employment and Social Development Canada) for LMIA (Labour Market Impact Assessment) applications. The revised NOC 2021 was recently released.
NOC 2016 categorizes the jobs based on skills into NOC 0, NOC A, NOC B, NOC C, and NOC D. NOC 2021 categorizes jobs based on Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities (TEER) system with six categories: TEER 0, TEER 1, TEER 2, TEER 3, TEER 4, and TEER 5. More information regarding the NOC 2021 can be found at https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/subjects/standard/noc/2021/indexV1.
It is likely that these changes to the NOC will take effect from the second half of 2022 giving sufficient time to the relevant departments to make the necessary adjustments and to ensure a smooth transition. Once NOC 2021 is implemented, immigrants will have to ensure that their NOC according to the new system correlates to the NOC requirements of the program that they are applying to for them to qualify. In the meantime, it is important to stay updated with the changes to the NOC.