New Australian immigration criteria may lead to hospitality skills shortages

February 15 2010 by Liam Clifford

Officials from the Australian hospitality industry are warning that Australian immigration changes could lead to skills shortages.

The Australian immigration department has announced that it will replace the long-standing skilled occupations list. The list is to be replaced with a new list of occupations which it says are particularly in demand. Among these will be mining, engineering and healthcare.

However, hospitality professionals such as John Hart, the chief executive of Restaurant and Catering Australia, claim the careers on the new list are likely to be “attractive to the Government, but not necessarily in shortage”.

He added that that the previous list did not discriminate in terms of whether a job was seen as of “value” or not.

Restaurant and Catering Australia president Peter Doyle added, “Australia has had a shortage of cooks since the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956. The industry has grown at such a rapid rate that the supply of cooks in Australia has never been able to be filled. The supply of overseas students studying cookery is very important to filling the demand.”

The new Skilled Occupations List is set for release at the end of April.

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