Will Australia immigration cap of 200,000 solve Australia’s labor crunch?

News highlights

• Australia immigration seems to be the essential solution to solve the skilled worker shortage in the country.
• The Australian government will work on its migration cap and prioritize skilled workers.
• The top occupations in the country facing worker shortages have been identified ahead of the Jobs and Skills Summit coming up.
• The Australian government has identified the ‘jobs of the future’.

Australia is toying with many solutions trying to find the perfect solution for the shortage of skilled workers in the country. A strong contender among solutions is Australia immigration. The Australian government is indeed working on plans to improve immigration factors to attract more skilled workers who can solve the issue.

Indeed, the country has been grappling with this issue of skilled worker shortage for some time and it’s planning to win the battle with the best apparent solution: immigration.

Also read: Australia immigration has a string of new PR opportunities from July 1

What’s Australia up to?

The Australian government is betting on roping in more skilled foreign workers through immigration to solve the country’s labor shortage crisis. It has identified the top 10 occupations that will be in high demand in the next five years.

What will they do with the list? Well, they would align their Australia immigration targets to the list to bring in skilled immigrants for these occupations. This list is significant in that it has been announced ahead of Australia’s Jobs and Skills Summit. This event will be held on September 1 and 2 this year. The purpose of the summit is to combat the skill shortages felt these days.

"The conference brings together unions, business groups, and the people who help run our world-class VET sector, to look at how we deliver immediate action on the skills shortages Australia is facing.”

Anthony Albanese, Australian Prime Minister

 

Also read: Are you aware Australia Skilled Migration Program for FY 2022-23 is open?

What are the “jobs of the future” in Australia?

Here’s something you as a potential skilled immigrant would want to know. The Australian government has identified what it calls “jobs of the future” and has added them to the Skill Priority List. Here are those occupations:

• Construction managers
• Registered nurses
• Electricians
• Aged and disability carers
• Civil engineering professionals
• ICT (information & Communications Technology) business and systems analysts
• Chefs
• Early childhood teachers
• Software and applications programmers
• Child carers

Also read: With over 480,100 job vacancies, new Australia immigration cap planned

What are the other measures in the offing?

Here’s where the migration cap set by the Australian government comes into the picture. The cap for Australia's new permanent residents for 2022-23 is set at 160,000 places. This is the same as the cap in the 2021-22 period.

In 2021-22, the cap number was distributed almost evenly between family and skilled migrants. In the latest plan, skilled workers will get priority. In 2023, over two-thirds of migrants to Australia will be from 7 of the various skilled visas available.

Know your eligibility to immigrate to Australia through Y-Axis Australia Immigration Points Calculator.

More voices, more responses

Businesspeople and unions in Australia are urging the Australian government to lift the migration cap to 200,000 in the next 2 years. This, as they claim, will alleviate shortages in labor in many workplaces in Australia.

While Australia immigration is getting much support as a solution to the skill shortage, there are concerns that not enough Australians were trained to acquire skills during the pandemic period. Such a concern has come from none other than Richard Marles, Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister.

A major complication in getting Australians trained in professional skills is that those who are showing the willingness to take up the jobs aren’t always there in the first place.

Christine Holgate, former chief executive of Australia Post has stated that skilled migration is a short-term solution for Australia. In the long run, the country will need its labor force to be sufficiently skilled to sustain the solution. This could mean that migrant retention and training of native Australians could be the real necessities to realize real solutions.

If you are willing to migrate to Australia, talk to Y-Axis, the leading immigration and career consultant in the UAE.

If you find this blog engaging, you may also like:

Move to attract 12,000 migrants willing to work abroad in New Zealand