** UPDATE: THE NINTH DRAW HAS OCCURRED, MORE DETAILS HERE: http://www.ruichenlaw.com/lawblog/2015/5/22/express-entry-draw-9-

May has come and only ten days remain in the month and zero Express Entry Draws since the eighth, which was on April 17th with a total of 715 applicants invited.

Expectations were that we would see another draw in early May. Since the first draw on January 30th, they've been rolling out steady with a decline in points required. It wasn't until Friday, March 20th that the points dipped below the 600 point threshold, allowing those without a job offer to participate in the draw.

Waiting for the next round

It's been 33 days since the last Express Entry Draw. They generally tend to take place early Friday evenings. For a while it appeared that the draws were occurring around 2 or 3 weeks apart but since draw eight they seem to be taking a bit of an Express Entry breather.

Are we likely to see another draw this coming Friday, May 22? Considering that CIC announced initially that it would only hold about 20 draws per year, we may be looking at a prolonged period of stagnation before the next round. As eight draws in we are only about a third of the way through 2015, so it may be that only one draw per month or so might be the frequency moving forward.

Of course, it helps to know that the number of rounds of draws we receive may not correlate to the same number of invitees. For example, draw 9 might look something like this:

Friday May 22, 2015 - Draw 9
Number of invitations - 1400
CRS Threshold - 450

In this example, the points are about the same but the number of invitations is up again. We will have to wait and see but overall we are predicting less draws, the same points and more invitations. Stay tuned!