It was recently announced that the target of the Australian Government to attract one hundred ninety thousand new migrants, in the latest financial year, was achieved.
The information from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) is showing that Australian industry benefited from some one hundred twenty eight thousand five hundred fifty places being granted within the stream of skilled positions.
Mr. Scott Morrison, the minister of DIBP, said that this is equal to almost sixty eight per cent of the programme. He also said that the skill stream is aimed towards giving assistance to filling the identified skill shortages in the country’s economy. He explained that it has resulted to giving the Australian economy the major boost that it needs.
Overall, in the year 2013 to 2014, more than sixty three per cent of visas given in the skilled stream was accounted for by occupational professionals. This was followed by twenty two per cent from trades workers and technicians, and nine per cent of the skilled stream visas granted to managers.
Over sixty per cent of skilled migration visas have been delivered within the designation that is sponsored by employers. This amounted to forty seven thousand four hundred fifty places. Six thousand one hundred sixty places were taken by business innovation and investment, and twenty four thousand six hundred fifty six visa categories were nominated by state and territory governments.
The family stream accounted for sixty one thousand one hundred twelve places, which represents around thirty two per cent of the migration programme. The family stream prioritised the reunion of the workers’ partners as well as their children.
Within this particular visa stream, forty seven thousand seven hundred fifty two places were accounted for by the partner category. This was equal to seventy eight per cent of the family sector. Meanwhile, in the child category, three thousand eight hundred fifty places was delivered. What remained of the family stream places were given within the other family (585 places), contributory parent (6,675), and parent categories (2,250).
”The delivery of a well-managed migration scheme demonstrates our capacity to carefully structure our programmes to deliver the size & composition required to meet the needs of the Australian economy,” said Mr. Morrison, also saying that the purpose of having migration is to drive the country’s economy, as well as shape society, and give the labour market the support that it needs and also to reunite family.
The largest source country of migrants for Australia was India, where it got thirty nune thousand twenty six places, or 23.1 per cent of the total. It was followed by China which got twenty six thousand seven hundred seventy six places. The third country is United Kingdom, which got twenty three thousand two hundred twenty places.
A breakdown of the figures however, has shown that the number of visas given to Indian applicants has decreased by 2.6 per cent. For China, the numbers also went down two per cent compared with the financial year before. For British people, the number of visas increased by seven per cent.
Most of the people settled in New South Wales. 33.7 per cent of the new migrants was in the state, and the numbers actually went up from 30.2 per cent in the prior financial year. The second largest number of migrants, which was 24..4 per cent was in Victoria, followed by 17.8 per cent in Western Australia.
It has been recorded that over the past decade, only Victoria and New South Wales were the only states that had decreases in the numbers of the total migration programme. The largest fall recorded in New South Walwes was 4.7 per cent in 2013/2014. During the same period, Victoria was down 2.8 per cent.
The largest increase in numbers over the past decade was recorded in Western Australia, which went up 5.8 per cent in the proportion of the migration programme. A 0.7 per cent increase was recorded in South Australia, and in the Northern Territory it saw a case of a threefold increase, going up from 0.5 per cent in 2003/2004, to 1.4 per cent in 2013/2014.
In the data, it also shows how the size and composition of the migration programme has been made flexible, and how it changed over the years. It was a much smaller programme that consisted of mostly family migrants in 1993/1994 that became a larger programme that consisted more of skilled migrants in 2013/2014.
The government is the one that sets planning levels each year. The size and the composition adapts to meet the country’s social and economic needs.
Source: www.AustraliaForum.com
