The migration skills list and the occupation ceilings sets the limits on the number of permanent visas granted each year under Australia’s skilled migration programme. However, many of the trades skills quotas are not being met. It is not clear if there is insufficient interest from applicants or if people are not bothering to apply due to the high English Language requirement.

Eight months of the financial year have passed and DIBPs recently updated statistics on occupation ceilings show that out of some 160,000 possible invitations that DIBP can issue in each programme year, only about 19,402 invitations have been sent as at 25 February 2015. The statistics are listed here: http://www.immi.gov.au/Work/Pages/SkillSelect/SkillSelect.aspx#tab-4 . You will have to click the Occupational Ceilings tab to view the data.

Occupational ceilings limit how many invitations to apply are issued by the Department of Immigration each year for general skilled migration for a particular occupation. Generally, applicants with an Expression of Interest in occupational groups which have reached their ceiling will not be invited to apply for a visa but however will remain in the EOI pool for two years from the date of submission, or until they are selected to apply when a fresh quota is issued.

Occupational ceilings do not apply to Employer Sponsored or Business Innovation and Investment visa subclasses and have now also been removed for State or Territory Nominated, visa subclasses. Effectively this means that states can nominate occupations for Skilled Nominated Subclass 190 and Skilled Regional Subclass 489 visas even if the ceiling has been reached.

Based on DIBPs current statistics, over 90 per cent of the jobs have barely hit 50 per cent of their quota. In fact, more than half the jobs on the list that numbers 75 occupations, have barely hit 3 per cent of their quota.

Here’s the shock list as at 25 February 2015

In addition there are over a dozen occupations with a quota of 1000 like Tilers, Glaziers, Optometrists, Automotive Electricians and Air-conditioning/Refrigeration mechanics where invitations issued sit a single digit. Either they don’t find Australia attractive, or the skills assessment and language thresholds have made it impossible for them to give the process a go.

The other shock list for jobs with a quota of about 1000

 Have people given up on skill-select and trying other pathways? What is becoming of this policy of amassing the best and brightest from abroad to our abode through this precise system of social engineering?

Perhaps the Skillselect system is best suited for those in IT, Accounting, Engineering and Health Care. These occupations are well on their way to hit their quotas before the end of the financial year. The 5478 places for Accountants and the 5005 places for Software Programmers are about 70 per cent full.

The stated purpose of the occupational ceiling is to distribute the number of invitations across jobs so that, “the migration programme is not dominated by a small number of occupations.” However the current system is causing the program to be dominated by a few occupations. Perhaps it is because the best and brightest in their skill set who may have a suitable language level for their occupation just cannot meet the questionable high language bar imposed by DIBPs program. It is time for a rethink. Lowering the language threshold may be a start.