More young Taiwanese are applying for working holidays in Canada, the Canadian representative office said over the weekend.
The Canadian Trade Office in Taipei began accepting applications for this year’s International Experience Canada (IEC) program on Wednesday last week.
Within two days, it received more than 940 applications — the full quota for the year and faster than last year in terms of the time taken to fill the quota, an official with the Canadian representative office said.
The office said in a news release on Thursday that it would hold a draw to select 940 applications that it would review for this year’s Working Holiday program.
The office added that it would only continue accepting applications for the IEC’s 20 vacancies in International Co-op and 40 slots in the Young Professional categories.
Those who mailed their application packages after Thursday are required to indicate on the envelope whether they are applying for the International Co-op or Young Professionals categories, to ensure that their submissions will be received and processed, the office said.
To ensure fairness, all applications postmarked Jan. 9 will be placed in the draw for the Working Holiday category.
“We will notify everyone [successful and unsuccessful] who sent in their application by Jan. 9 on the status of their application by mid-January via e-mail,” the office said.
It also asked applicants not to contact the office during this period to inquire about the status of their application.
Taiwan and Canada signed an agreement in 2010 to launch the working holiday program.
Under the program, people aged 18 to 35 from the two countries are allowed to travel and work for up to one year.
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