Guys,
Increasingly I'm getting convinced that PBEC is now trying harder to clear up the backlog as promised - it is evident in their actions now.
1) For example, my labor (PD, 9Sept'03) was cleared on (PD, 9Sept'06) and now PBEC is approving Jan/Feb'04. That is a huge leap in terms of processing dates in just 30days.
Honestly, I was not expecting my case to be approved before this yearend and I had hopes of coming closer to approval by Dec06. But my approval in Sept pleasantly surprised me. I'm sure there are some folks (especially from 2004 cases) who can relate to my feelings.
2) Importantly, PBEC took recent action to let non-RIR conversion to RIR possible for all the BEC applications. Not that this option did not exist before. There is something important here to be read about "PBEC minds". The reason PBEC did this is to shed some recruitment off their desks. People have to take advantage of this opportunity. I can pretty much guarantee that if one does a reasonable job in recruitment of a case; PBEC will approve it. They are there to guide your case to approval stage, and NOT there to do a supervised recruitment of your (nonRIR) case.
In the short term, it might appear that RIR conversion/advertisement might be another 2k expense. But in the long term, it might be $$'s well spent since your case will be approved a whole lot quicker. If PBEC is going to perform their recruitment, not only it will take time, but you are also subjected to a lot greater risk of they finding someone qualified to do your job, or some other crap leading to your case getting unnecessarily complicated. Whereas if you do the recruitment (in YOUR region), you have a whole lot of control over your own advertisement process.
If you have not talked/seen your HR rep recently, this is a very valid reason they you should schedule the meeting with them and push them to convert your case to RIR. This memo from PBEC is going to change your life. Its basically PBEC saying to all of us to "help them" approve your case. This memo is pretty much a declaration/call from PBEC for some desperate HELP.
Now there are some folks; especially from 2001/2002/2003 who will vehemently disagree with me here just because their case is not approved or they know several people whose cases are not approved. My point here is that, PBEC is looking at a huge number of cases backlog and they are trying to use the best way to clear this now. I guess, I'm not saying that PBEC is perfect; and we can pull some statistics and find some anamolies too. But as a long time observer and looking at recent trends, it appears now in their actions that they are getting serious about clearing this backlog. Otherwise before, it just seemed that PBEC was just a big behemoth which did not know which way to go and what to do. Now, it seems like PBEC has some definite direction/goal that they are working towards. I atleast hope that they will clear the backlog by Dec07 if not by Sept07.
