Australia will increase the amount of permanent immigration by 35,000 to 195,000 in the current financial year because it seems to change its focus towards long -term migrants, bringing some assistance to businesses that fight the lack of widespread staff.
Australia closed its border for about two years during the peak of Pandemi Covid-19 but the rule of strict and exodus of holiday workers and foreign students made the business struggle to find staff and keep their business survive.
“Covid presents us, on a plate, with the opportunity to reform our immigration system that we will never come back again. I want us to take the opportunity,” Minister of Home Affairs Clare O’Neil told the Government Work Summit on Friday.
“Based on projections, this could mean thousands of nurses who settled in this country this year, thousands of engineers again.”
The unemployment rate of Australia is now almost 50 years in low 3.4 percent but the soaring inflation means the real wage is down.
Business has urged the government to increase annual immigration limits from 160,000, encouraging it to make temporary changes to fill the labor gap.
The left-left party government which was recently elected to hold a two-day summit in Canberra, the National Capital, invited business groups and trade unions to help find solutions to the main economic challenges.
Australia has competed with other advanced economies to attract more skilled employees from abroad with many countries who want to alleviate immigration rules.
But the explosion in the time processing visa in Australia has left around one million prospective workers trapped in the limbo, worsening the crisis of staff lack.
“We understand that when people are waiting and waiting, uncertainty can not be managed,” Immigration Minister Andrew Giles told the Summit. “This is not good enough, and reflects a visa system that has been in a crisis.”
In an effort to accelerate visa processing, Giles said the government would spend $ 36.1 million ($ 25 million) to increase its staff capacity by 500 people for the next nine months.