South Australia needs to attract more work visa holders

September 16 2009 by Mark Johnstone

Peter Vaughan on Australian visas

Business South Australia chief executive Peter Vaughan says the region needs to embrace more immigrants who want to go and work in Australia in order to boost the region's ageing workforce in the future.

The business expert says the region has the lowest percentage of its population under 30 in the country and that awarding Australian visas to more young families with skills to offer will help South Australia’s economy.

Vaughan explains that without an influx of immigration, the region could find itself in trouble: “We have fewer people with tertiary qualifications per capita than anywhere else. That's a perfect-storm combination if you combine our population structure and our skills base."

Over the next 50 to 100 years South Australia will develop economically if young families are encouraged to move to Australia to work. He explained, "we can't survive without the critical mass and we need to use these people to settle our current and looming skills shortage.”

Vaughan says the southern region of the country needs to “broaden its outlook” and welcome a higher number of immigrants to live in Australia and encourage them to take up jobs in industries suffering skills shortages.

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