On the 17th February, 2008 the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, announced an increase of 6000 places in the Skilled Migration Program.
The increase in places in the program is to be made up of permanent employer sponsored visas and General Skilled Migration visas with the additional 6000 places bringing the total number of permanent visas granted under the Skilled Migration Program in 2007-2008 to 108,500.
The increase to the Skilled Migration program is in response to the skills and labour shortage in Australia and has the potential to provide thousands of additional workers in the labour-strapped mining and construction industries.
What is the Skilled Migration Program?
The Skilled Migration Program allows visa applicants to use their qualifications, work experience and language ability to satisfy Australian immigration requirements.
The program caters for applicants who are not sponsored by an employer and who have skills that Australia requires to fill labour shortages. In order to qualify for the program applicants:
- Must be over eighteen years of age and under forty five years of age;
- Be proficient in English; and
- Possess recent skilled work experience or an eligible Australian qualification for an occupation listed on the Skilled Occupation List.
What level of proficiency in English is required?
An applicant will be required to demonstrate proficiency in English and this requirement can be satisfied by sitting the International English Language Testing System to show evidence of English language ability.
What skills are recognised under the Skilled Migration Program?
The assessment of skills under the program depends upon the type of qualification or occupation that the applicant possesses as no single authority exists to assess or recognise all overseas qualifications.
An applicant must nominate an occupation on the Skilled Occupation List and provide evidence that their skills have been assessed as suitable for the nominated occupation by the relevant assessing authority. This requires the applicant to contact the relevant assessing authority to arrange for a skills assessment and may involve satisfying state level licensing and registration requirements.
Additional measures to address the labour and skills shortage
The immediate increase to the Skilled Migration program is to be followed by a series of migration measures designed to address the Australian skills and labour shortage.
Senator Evans announced the following initiatives being investigated by the Government to address the current shortage:
- The expansion of the Working Holiday visa program for young people with negotiations already underway with reciprocal countries. The number of people on Working Holiday visas has increased from 85,200 in 2001-2002 to 126,600 in 2006-2007.
- Additional changes to the Working Holiday visa to enable people who undertake at least three months work in the construction sector in regional Australia to extend their twelve month holiday visa by another year.
- A review of the temporary work visa system also known as the subclass 457 visa program to ensure efficiency in the supply of skilled labour. This system allows businesses the ability to recruit skilled labour from overseas for temporary entry into Australia for periods between three months and four years.
- The existence of an External Reference Group made up of industry experts to examine how selected temporary skilled migration measures can help ease labour shortages in the medium to long term.
On announcing the migration package Senator Evans said that the package would complement the Rudd Government' move to fast track the establishment of Skills Australia in order to help lift the productive capacity of the Australian economy and to fight inflation.