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Urgent need to boost immigration to 220,000.
Australia’s productivity is steadily slipping down and will continue to do so if skilled migration numbers are not increased quickly.
The current migration intake of 190,000 a year is not enough to sustain productivity, says the Australian Industry Group (AIG). It says that Australia needs a steady increase in migration intake every year with an emphasis on skilled migration in order to meet current and future skills shortages.
The AIG has proposed that the Federal government needs to act immediately to substantially increase the immigration intake in the upcoming budget by at least 15% to 220,000 to meet the current skills shortage.
The AIG’s chief executive Innes Willox says now is the right time to accelerate skilled migration given Australia's ageing workforce and skills shortages in industries including mining, construction, engineering and health.
"This proposed increase takes into account the proven benefits to the economy of a strong migration program. An increase in migrant numbers supports positive growth in our population and especially in our adult workforce, which is important due to relatively low rates of natural population growth. A higher skilled migration intake is appropriate at present due to Australia's historically low (albeit growing) unemployment rates; the deepening impacts of our ageing workforce (with 9% of all Australian employees now aged 60 or over and 17% aged 55 or over); and persistent skill shortages in key growth industries including mining services, engineering, infrastructure and health services.
"The Australian Workplace Productivity Agency has identified that Australia will need an increase of about 2.8 million people with quite specific skills over the next decade to fill some of those gaps," he said.
A recent AIG construction sector surveys indicated that during the six months to September 2013, 67.7% of respondents reported either major or moderate difficulty in the recruitment of skilled labour (up from 65.7% six months ago). The sourcing of sub-contractors was also a dominant supply constraint with 47.1% citing major or moderate difficulty (up from 43.8%).
The skill shortages situation is even more serious in relation to occupations requiring Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills. The occupations where there are shortages due to low STEM levels, as illustrated by a recent AIG report: technicians and trade workers (41%), professional (26.6%) and managers (26.3%).
“This is deeply concerning considering the Office of the Chief Scientist recently reported that 75% of the fastest growing occupations require STEM skills and knowledge.”
The Ai Group says further increases from the 220,000 level may be needed in future years, despite unemployment currently sitting at 5.8 per cent and tipped to rise well above 6 per cent by Treasury, the Reserve Bank and many private sector forecasters.
Mr Willox says while there are Australians without work, there are not enough skilled workers for a range of specialist occupations, with the AIG singling out residential construction as an area of acute shortages.
He says increasing education and training is a desirable long-term solution, but immigration is a useful stop gap measure.
"We've seen Australia slipping down the tables when it comes to those basic skills around our science, technology, engineering, mathematics skills."
Comments
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Tuesday, 21 January 2014I agree Ben, there are many highly skilled migrants who fall short on the IELTS requirements, and therefore can not apply for General Skilled Migration (many of whom have been in the country for a number of years, and who are well versed and easy to understand).
Also, if the government is serious about getting migrants to move to regional areas, IELTS scores should not need to be 6.0 in each band for RSMS direct entry stream. -
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Hello Kristie,
I am totally agree with you.. -
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Hi Kristy. My views regarding the current need for an English test are well and truly aired in my two-paged letter to the Minister, including concrete evidence of inconsistencies with repeated IELTS scores (a copy of my letter was published on this forum). Funnily enough, the Minister has at this stage failed to respond (maybe he can't read English and needs to sit for an IELTS test). However, having said that, it is my view that people who claim to be professionals should be expected to express themselves in correct English. I had to do the hard yards learning English and I would expect others to do the same.
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Monday, 17 February 2014
yes IELTS criteria should be relaxed.I am also totally agreed.Immigration should depend upon the education not on ielts.
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Sunday, 23 February 2014
Hi..Also i think they should review the age limit. New Zealand's immigration age limit is 55 and I don't see why not in Australia since some skill workers are still very fit and motivated to perform at works.
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Saturday, 02 August 2014
hi guys, i totally agree with you, i did IELTS 4 times each time at least one subject fall short. this is crazy, my friend a qualified telecommunication engineer did 6 times IELTS but could not get through. Australia cannot attract intelligent people in this way, rather they can attract students who are good in fast reading, fancy English accent etc.
good luck to Australia: -
Sunday, 03 August 2014
Raj, I totally agree with you. Australia should have to focus on qualification rather than on fancy english accent.
Immigration blog
May I suggest that the Government relaxes its migration entry criteria to boost migration and for a start look closely at the IELTS criteria which the average Australian (and Migration Agent?)can't pass.