Skilled migrant focus

AUSTRALIA’S weekly intake of skilled migrant has been set to average nearly 2,000 people, according to Immigration Minister Senator Amanda Vanstone.

The minister told a Committee for Economic Development for Australia seminar in Melbourne last week that this weekly boost meant the skilled migrant intake for the current financial year would reach about 97,500, an increase of 20,000 places over last year.

This target puts the overall migration program within the range of 130,000 to 140,000 places.

The 20,000 rise means that the 2005-06 migration program will mark the eighth successive year of increases.

Senator Vanstone said the increase for the current year had been designed to  complement measures the Government was taking to expand training of Australians, particularly in the traditional trades.

A key aim of the dual migration boost and local training approach to meet demand for skilled labour was to ensure that the working age portion of the Australian population continued to grow.

“A primary aim will be to increase the number of skilled migrants under the employer-sponsored categories, as it is employers who are best placed to identify the skilled migrants we need,” Senator Vanstone said.

“To help industry better address migration-related skills and labour issues, the Government will fund the out-posting of departmental staff to key industry bodies to provide expert support to their members.

“We’ll be working through the Immigration Department to make sure that employers understand how they can sponsor, that we can make it easier for people to sponsor and that’s why we’ve outsourced some people to various industry organisations.

“We recognise that it’s our job to help because you know best.

“We’re putting them out there just to help business; helping business will help Australia.”

The new system of closer cooperation between industry and government has given rise to four initiatives.

More trades and engineering related occupations are being added to the ‘migration occupations in demand list’, which provides priority processing and additional points for the general skilled migration points test.

And this list will be reviewed six monthly to reflect better emerging labour shortages and further improve targeting.

An extra 10 points will be allocated for state/region sponsorship under the Skilled Independent Regional visa to address demands for more skilled migrant by many states and regions.

Working holiday makers and occupational trainee visa holders will be allowed to obtain a skilled independent regional visa without having to leave Australia, just as overseas students can already.

A pilot program will be introduced to allow overseas students to undertake traditional trade apprenticeships in regional Australia on a full-fee paying basis, and on completion of these, to apply for migration under one of the regional migration visas.

Senator Vanstone said these modifications ensured that the migration program would be responsive to the changing needs of the labour market.

This includes the School Apprenticeship Link program, which enables students to commence trade training while still at school, and a series of short courses to upskill current workers.

Recently appointed Education and Training Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich is planning to implement further reforms in the next few weeks.

She said her action plan “will involve some very experienced leaders in industry and business”.

The minister’s initiatives are expected to include the formation of a Skills Formation Taskforce headed by former state develop-ment minister Clive Brown.

The State Government has also beefed up the State Training Board, with the appointment of Woodside chief operating officer Keith Spence as the new chairperson.

Ms Ravlich is also expected to announce the creation of industry ‘brokerage’ teams, which will help small- and medium-sized businesses identify their training needs and facilitate access to appropriate training.

The brokerage teams will work in the four industry areas of cooking, building and construction, metals and automotive.

A further initiative is a critical skills training fund, with annual funding of $5 million for a rapid response capacity to meet skills gaps.

The Federal Government has also adopted measures to boost trade training, including widening the eligibility for incentive payments to employers and introducing an $800 payment to apprentices to help them purchase tools of the trade.

On the immigration front, the biggest change adopted by the Federal Government was a 20,000-person increase in the planned skilled migrant intake in the current financial year.

As discussed elsewhere in this feature, the Department of Immigration is also working with industry to help businesses bring skilled migrants into the country.