Given a chance, they land on their feet and potentially can become job creators, this is what figures released for the first time by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) seem to indicate.

According to the ABS figures, migrants generated $38 billion in total income in 2009-10. Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of migrant taxpayers were Skilled, 28 per cent were Family migrants and 4 per cent were Humanitarian migrants. On average, skilled migrants earned a median wage of $43,593 and were from Britain, India, China, South Africa and the Philippines. Family migrants, who have been reunited with family members in Australia earned a median wage of $30,000 and humanitarian visa holders, earned a median wage of $27,000.

“While almost two-thirds of migrant taxpayers were migrants with a Skilled visa — reporting $26 billion in Employee income — Humanitarian migrants displayed greater entrepreneurial qualities and reported a higher proportion of income from their own unincorporated businesses and this income increased sharply after five years of residency,” noted Jenny Dobak from the ABS.

Migrants born in the UK reported the most total income at $8.8 billion, while migrants born in India were the second largest income contributors with $5.3 billion of total income. Migrants born in South Africa comprised only 5 per cent of all migrant taxpayers but received $2.8 billion in total income. People from Sudan and Sierra Leone earned the most income within the humanitarian category.

Median Employee incomes for Skilled males exceeded the median Employee income for Skilled females across all age groups. Almost 55 per cent of migrant taxpayers were males reporting 65 per cent or $24 billion of total income.

The statistics only included figures on permanent migrants, excluding people on temporary visas such as 457 or students visas who have been under particular scrutiny lately after the 7-Eleven franchise chain was exposed in Australia for grossly under-paying staff on student visas. Under the Abbott government, 13,750 people are granted a humanitarian visa a year. These figures are set to increase to 18,750 annually from 2018. The Abbott government yesterday announced a one-off increase of 12,000 humanitarian visa places to help resettle the estimated 4 million people displaced by the crisis in Syria.

Information collated from various news reports including The Australian and the ABS.