Government officials, union leaders, business representatives and community activists have reconvened in the nation’s capital for day two of a jobs and skills summit.
Here are highlights of the second day’s discussions and developments, where skilled migration is expected to be a key topic.
Skilled migration
The federal government has confirmed that the permanent migration cap for 2022/23 will be lifted by 35,000 in an attempt to address economy-wide skills shortages.
Clare O’Neil, Home Affairs Minister, announced at the summit that the cap would increase to 195,000 this financial year.
“Based on projections, this could mean thousands more nurses settling in the country this year, thousands more engineers,” she said.
“For the first time in our history, Australia is not the destination of choice for many of our skilled migrants.
“Those best and brightest minds, who are on the move around the world, they are looking to live in countries like Canada, Germany and UK and those countries are rolling out a red carpet to welcome them in.”
Speaking before the summit, she said there was too much of a focus on temporary migration, calling for more permanent solutions.
“One of the big problems is that we’ve created one where it is very easy to come as a temporary worker probably in a pretty low-skilled job but virtually impossible to come here permanently as a high-skilled worker.
“We need to think about migration as a driver of productivity and great jobs. The system in place today doesn’t help us do that.”
Businesses and unions had reached a broad consensus on the cap, with both agreeing that there should be a 40,000 annual boost to 200,000 places.
The current cap on Australia’s permanent migration program is 160,000 people per year. In the mid-2010s, levels rose to about 190,000 before they were slashed in 2019–20.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has contended that migration is part of the solution to the shortage of skilled labor in Australia, while the Australian Council of Trade Unions has supported migration only with seventeen conditions, including greater efforts to train local workers.
In the face of predicted population growth, Ms O’Neil said an increase in migration would have to be coupled with a boost to housing.
Jim Chalmers, the Australian treasurer, said that training Australians to fill jobs was a high priority but that skilled migration has its role as well.
“There is a role there for lifting the cap cautiously but not in isolation and not as a substitute for some of the other things we have to do,” he said.
The federal government has announced it will review Australia’s migration system. Three eminent Australians—Bill Hayden, Robert de Castella and Andrew Demetriou—will oversee the process, with further announcements planned for coming weeks.
Visa processing
The Albanese government has announced a $36.1 million investment in visa processing, an effort to speed up the approvals process for foreign travelers.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said that, since the government took office, processing times at Australian immigration facilities have begun to improve.
“We will invest $36.1 million in visa processing to surge staff capacity by 500 over the next nine months,” he said.
“The median number of days it takes for a person coming to Australia on a temporary skilled visa is down from 53 in May to 42 in July.
“The median time taken to approve new businesses for sponsorship has halved from 37 days to 18.
“In May students outside of Australia had to wait an average of 40 days for their visa, now the figure is down to 31 and over half of working holiday visas are now finalised in less than one day.”
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