Australian immigration authority criticises government strategy

June 05 2009 by Bryan Palmer

australian immigration trades face tougher regime

Infrastructure projects could suffer

The Migration Institute of Australia (MIA) has warned the government work on infrastructure projects will be difficult to accomplish following the decision to put restrictions on the skilled migration program.

While the MIA welcomed the Australian immigration ministers decision to increase the number of humanitarian and family reunion Australian visas for the 2009/10 Migration Program, they are less than impressed with the decision to remove a number of trade-level occupations from the skilled occupation list.

“The MIA awaits with great interest to see how the Government proposes to administer the new job-readiness criteria for trade occupations. It's hard to imagine a one-size-fits-all assessment system of employability," said Maurene Horder, CEO of the Migration Institute of Australia.

Following the onset of the global recession, the Government reduced the number of skilled Australian visas from 133,500 to 115,000 and tightened job-readiness criteria for trade occupations. Tougher English language tests and a job offer from an Australian based employer or government sponsorship now stand in the way of skilled immigrants who want to work in Australia.

From the July 1st 2009 Australian immigration officials will be targeting skilled workers in the engineering, IT and health sectors.

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