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14th Apr 2015

10,000 Canadian visas will be up for grabs for Irish jobseekers today

Fancy a new start?

Conor Heneghan

They won’t be around for long though so you’d better act fast.

Irish jobseekers in search of a new life abroad will be provided with that opportunity when the International Experience Canada (IEC) working visa programme opens to Irish applicants today.

According to the Irish Examiner, as many as 10,000 Canadian visas will be up for grabs for Irish jobseekers, including just under 2,500 young professional visas (for those with job offers), 495 for International Co-op (internship) visas and over 7,000 working holiday visas.

The first round of the working holiday visas – you have to be under 36 to be eligible but don’t have to have a job offer – will open today and successful applicants will have 12 months in which to activate it.

Having used a Garth Brooks ticket analogy to sum up the visa situation last year, manager at visafirst.com Edwina Shanahan has said that the demand for Canadian visas in Ireland this year will be akin to the demand for Frozen dolls at Christmas.

Our lack of familiarity (honest) with said analogy means that we’ll just have to take her word for it.

“We likened the demand for last year’s visas programme to Garth Brooks tickets as they were snapped up as soon as they became available and with Canada only growing in popularity for Irish people looking to work abroad — we believe this year’s visas will be akin to Frozen dolls at Christmas,” Shanahan is quoted as saying in the Irish Examiner.

“Anyone interested should note it is likely that round one will sell out in less than 10 minutes and there will only be one other opportunity to get an open IEC visa — though we have not yet been told when the second round will be rolled out,” she added.

For more information on the Canada IEC Programme for 2015, click here.

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