Australian Immigration Daily News

Applicants who submitted an expression of interest to apply for Skilled Independent (Subclass 189) or the Skilled Regional (Provisional Subclass 489) may be receiving an invitation from the Department of Home Affairs as early as today.  

The first round of invitations for the new migration year is expected to run between 11^th and 12^th July.  Historically speaking, the first invitation round in the new migration year generally results in a large volume of invitations.  It is expected that somewhere between 1000 to 2000 invitations will be sent for the Skilled Independent and around 100 invitations for the Skilled Regional visas. 

Skilled Migration programme has been significantly impacted by 1 July changes as a resulted of large number of expression of interest (EOI’s) lodged through Skill Select.  Skill Select initiative was launched by the Australian Government on 1 July 2012 which is an online service that enables skilled persons who are interested in obtaining an Australian visa to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) that includes information about their skills and other attributes. Skill Select issues invitations to apply to migrate based upon a ranking of the attributes of nominees and subject to ceilings on occupation numbers. Skill Select also enables staff of certain State/Territory government agencies and Australian employers to view relevant information in an intending migrant’s Expression of Interest (EoI). Due to the large volume of invitations currently in the system, the cut-off score for subsequent (post 1 July) invitation round increased to 65 points. 

Whilst the minimum pass score is likely to remain at 65 points for the foreseeable future, it is worthwhile to note that invitations issued during the previous round was to prospective applicants sitting on 70 to 75 points. 

The highest ranked clients by points score are invited to apply for the relevant visa. For clients who have equal points scores, the time at which they reached their points score for that subclass determines their order of invitation. Expressions of Interest with earlier dates of effect are invited before later dates.  Whilst some data pertaining methodology behind receiving an invitation is published on the Departmental website, it is not possible to know your ranking in the system.  This type of information remains unpublished.

Certain occupations in high demand require a greater score due to supply constraints: 

In addition, certain occupations are subject to ceilings and limitation in the number of invitations that can be issued for any given migration year.  Occupation ceiling values are based on a percentage of stock employment figures for each occupation. Stock employment figures are provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and represent the number of people employed in Australia in each occupation.

To improve points score, applicants may wish to consider reviewing the following: 

-          Resitting English language test

-          Gaining further employment experience in Australia

-          Considering further study in Australia

The following round of invitations will be run the final weeks of July. 

For further information, visit: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/trav/visa-1/189-