Skilled migrant intake shows no sign of let-up

Western Australia’s migrant intake of predominantly skilled workers has been running at well over 1,000 people a month, or about 13,300 annually, during the past five calendar years, 2000 to 2004.

That’s more than 25 per cent above the level registered during the 1990s, when the annual intake averaged 10,500.

Since the early 1980s, WA’s proportion of the migrant intake has been significantly above the state’s 10 per cent of the national population.

Between 1982 and 2004 the state’s average intake was 13.4 per cent of aggregate national intake.

During the past two calendar years, 2003 and 2004, it jumped to 15.2 per cent and 14.4 per cent respectively, reflecting the impact of the resources and infrastructure boom.

The latest available figures for 2003-04 show WA’s settler arrivals increasing to 15,411.

And early indications for 2004-05 are that the intake will reach 18,000, or around 15 per cent of Australia’s total intake.

Although these levels are below those of NSW, Victoria and Queensland, they triple South Australia’s for the same period.

Not shown by these aggregates, however, is WA’s performance within the various categories of Australia’s overall non-humanitarian or labour market oriented immigration programs.

Australia’s migration intake is highly utilitarian.

This means most arrivals are not only earmarked for employment but are skilled, since the migration focus is upon attracting trained people.

The emphasis is on permanent settlers who are young, skilled and, more specifically, who can fill current shortages.

According to Chamber of Commerce and Industry senior economist John Nicolaou, failure to take this utilitarian or labour market-oriented approach would mean the emergence of greater wage pressures as industries competed for scarce labour.

“Worse still we could also see valuable potential projects not being launched and instead being constructed overseas,” Mr Nicolaou said.

In mid-2004 WA had 5,000 unfilled positions. This has tripled to 15,000 today, despite about 60,000 people having entered the workforce over the past year.

Significantly, in 2003-04 nearly 77 per cent of migrants who were in the labour force before migrating were skilled.

This arises from the fact that the program under which 111,590 people reached Australia in 2003-04 revolved around a set of specially classified visas that were offered to skilled migrants.

And such visas are acquired by applicants gaining designated numbers of points, based on age, English proficiency, training, and even location nominated to settle.

Not widely known is that both South Australia and Tasmania are classified as regions – as are the Pilbara and Kimberley of WA – which means people wanting to enter Australia as skilled workers are required to gain fewer points if they opt to live in South Australia or Tasmania.

Adelaide and Hobart are consequently treated as being on a par with locations such as Karratha, Port Hedland or Kununurra.

Both states are favoured to help boost their populations and encourage skilled workers to settle there, even if some only do so for limited periods.

In many cases this has meant WA has quickly gained migrants who used those states as temporary stopover venues.

The Department of Immigration compiles a Skilled Occupation List annually that is largely drawn-up from newspaper and Internet job advertisements showing occupations in need.

The SOL is the basis for gauging who qualifies for entry; that is, which skills and qualifications are in demand across the labour market.

Victoria, which had a migrant intake for 2001-02 to 2003-04 about double that of WA, attained those levels because the Bracks Labor Government has a highly resourced migrant intake program.

Victoria’s goal was, and remains, to attract not less than 25 per cent of all migrants reaching Australia because it has a quarter of the national population and wishes to maintain that level.

South Australia make a similar concerted effort, but because it lacks a natural resources base comparable to WA’s, many of those sponsored into Adelaide and surrounding centres are eventually attracted to where employment is more plentiful.

Premier Geoff Gallop responded last December by allocating $1.5 million over three years for a migration unit to help ensure WA attracts an even larger number of skilled settlers.

The state’s migrant intake performance until early this year was, therefore, achieved with limited State Government direction, which is a measure of WA’s performance and appeal to date.

About six in every 10 of the 18,000 people to reach WA during 2004-05, or 10,800 people, will have arrived through what is called the Skilled-Independent category.

And nearly 500 of these will have been accepted under the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme. The State Sponsored Business Migration visa program is expected to have resulted in more than 860 migrants.

• See Trade, page 14