Skilled Visas to work in Australia will become more difficult to get. The Australian Government has been saying for months that it will cut severely the number of skilled visas issues each year. It has indicated that the news

Skilled Visas

Skilled visas have been running at about 190,000 a year for some years. But now they have been cut to about 160,000 for the most recent financial year. That’s a drop of 16 per cent. And there have been suggestions that the target number which the Government is working on could be closer to !00,000 than 160,000 from 1 July 2019.

Criticism of Government Move

A range of commentators have criticised the Government’s move to reduce the rate of skilled migration. This weekend Walkley Award-winning journalist and Channel 7 Political Editor Mark Rile wrote in The West Australian that blaming migration for urban ills such as traffic congestion and rising house prices was a “misfire”.

Inadequate Planning

Riley said that:
“The reason people are sitting in traffic jams has very little to do with the 162,000 permanent migrants who entered the country in the past financial year.
“Nor does it have much to do with the 183,000 who entered the country the year before that.
It has everything to do with a succession of mostly State, but also Federal governments who have failed the people miserably in planning inadequately for a future that is now our congested present.”

Skilled Visas Number in Decline

Mark Rile goes on to say:
“The truth is, though, that the number of permanent migrants entering the country has peaked and is falling already. The 30,000 “cut” Scott Morrison floated this week would simply formalise the current trend. The number is already 30,000 below the 190,000 cap.
“The question is whether the effective cap of 160,000 should trend lower over the next decade to take us back to the 100,000-level administered by John Howard in 2000.

Skilled Visas to Fill Job Gaps

“But business and independent economists warn that carving the number of new arrivals would have a destructive impact on our labour market and, hence, the economy.
“The modern migration program is heavily skewed towards attracting skilled workers to fill crucial employment gaps.
“Without them, those gaps grow, production and innovation suffer and the whole show starts going down the gurgler.”