Australian Immigration Daily News

In a report released today, The Business Council of Australia recommends:

 The ‘ceiling’ for the permanent migration intake should remain at 190,000 per annum in 2019-20, with 128,550 places reserved for skilled migrants and the remainder for the family stream.

 Consider setting the ceiling of 190,000 per annum for the next three years – 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 – to provide business, governments and the community with greater certainty about the future intake and to support better long term planning for growth

 The actual permanent migrant intake in 2019-20 (and beyond) should be highly responsive to the needs of the labour market and the changing nature of jobs by prioritising applications where there is a job offer. A greater proportion of skilled stream visas should be allocated to ‘employer-sponsored’ workers by:

 retaining the current allocation of 48,250 places for employer-sponsored visas, identifying the reasons for the 2017-18 outcome only reaching 35,528 visas in this category (74 per cent of available places) and removing unnecessary policy or other barriers to filling the available places in 2019-20

 making more occupations eligible for the pathway from the Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) visa to the permanent migration program. TSS visa holders seeking permanent residency are already employed in an area of skill shortage and settled in Australia, and the initial temporary period works well for Australia and the migrant. Currently, 2-year TSS visa holders do not have access to the pathway to permanent migration, it is only available to holders of a 4 year TSS visa 

 Explore opportunities for making the visa approval process less costly and speeding up processing times to make Australia more attractive to the best and brightest migrants in an increasingly competitive global market for talent

 Migration policies should be set within a broader plan to manage population growth well, including planning and investing in infrastructure and the adequate provision of education, training, health and other services to meet the needs of a growing population.

Source: Business-Council-of-Australia-submission-to-DHA-2019-20-Migration-Programme.pdf