Australia is a trendy expat destination considered one of the best places to live because of its high standard of living. Currently, the country faces a labor shortage as its skills crisis is worsening, with businesses struggling to fill nearly half a million jobs amid a mismatch between people's expertise and the work available. With that, the country is looking for work migration, and it's easing some Australian visa classes.
There were a record 480,100 job vacancies in May 2022, according to seasonally adjusted data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics – more than double the number at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and up 14 percent in the three months to May. The rising vacancy rate comes at the same time as Australia's unemployment rate continues to fall, with the jobless rate at a 48-year low. According to the ABS, that meant there was nearly the same number of people looking for work as there were jobs: 1.1 unemployed people for every job vacancy.
This month, NT Chamber of Commerce chief executive Greg Ireland said the Northern Territory alone would need about 3,000 additional workers to ease the pressure. Meanwhile, businesses closed as they faced a worker shortage. Some companies tried to offer free flights, cheap housing, and free meals to attract staff, all to no avail. According to the chief executive, with the Covid-19, backpackers and working expats stopped coming to the territory and that's been an issue for some time.
Which areas are facing more labor shortages?
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar said businesses in all sectors and across every state and territory were facing massive worker shortages. Vacancies have risen across all industries since the start of the pandemic but have increased in some sectors such as arts and recreation, accommodation and food services, and rental hiring. In the three months to May this year, retail trade vacancies grew by 38%, information media and telecommunications by 18%, and arts and recreation by 16%. Moreover, there is a high number of vacancies in major sectors, including healthcare, financial services and construction.
Another affected sector is education, the New South Wales government is considering using fly-in-fly-out teachers to solve ongoing staff shortages in schools, but the opposition claims this is simply a band-aid solution as teachers will be needed in their regions as well.
Visa changes to benefit expats
A spokesman for the federal Department of Education, Skills and Employment said the Labor government had committed to a number of initiatives to tackle the crisis. The Australian government would provide 465,000 fee-free TAFE places for students studying in skills-shortage areas of the economy and 20,000 extra university places in 2022 and 2023, and expats are included. For all expats, local changes can also benefit them as the government also stated that it would support better wages for Australian workers, close the gender pay gap, put security back into work, make wage theft illegal and pay workers the same pay for the same jobs.
Changes for some Australian visa classes came into effect on 1 July. Although changes are mainly positive, visa application fees will increase by 3%. On the other hand, there is the removal of some major requirements for temporary graduate visas, changes to the job-ready program, and an increase in skilled migrant seats and chances for international students.
Some examples of policies taken to encourage expats to move to the country are the following: Subclass 485 visa applications in the Graduate Work stream will no longer require nominating a skilled occupation and obtaining an assessment; The Job Ready Program (JRP) will move from a four-step to a three-step program; Temporary graduate visa holders who lost their time due to COVID-19 travel restrictions can apply for a replacement visa; New postgraduate candidates will get three years and graduated candidates will get two years of replacement visas.
