Despite overall unemployment at 12-year highs (and rising), a budding youth unemployment crisis, and its own Department of Employment revealing that skills shortages are at an “historic low”, with employers able “to recruit skilled workers without marked difficulty” and “generally large fields of applicants vying for skilled jobs and employers filled a high proportion of their vacancies”, the Coalition has announced that it will materially loosen rules to enable employers in specific regions to import more labour from overseas. From The Australian:
…the federal government will allow employers to seek lower pay rates and easier language tests for foreign workers who can meet an urgent demand for skills in regions that are losing staff.
The new rules were signed off this week and are set to be applied in Darwin and then offered to other areas suffering an exodus of skilled workers rushing to join mining and gas companies.
Dozens of job categories will be covered so communities can bring in childcare workers, disability carers, mechanics, bricklayers, office managers, carpenters, chefs, nurses and many others.
Employers of all sizes will be able to sponsor overseas staff on wages that are up to 10 per cent below the usual rates set for 457 skilled worker visas, using a new kind of migration agreement for areas under stress…
Thankfully, there will at least be some controls on the program, with the scheme supposedly restricted to areas experiencing chronic labour shortages following an exodus of skilled workers leaving to join mining and gas companies, such as Darwin and the Pilbara.
I am generally a strong opponent of so-called skilled migration visas, especially in the major capitals where there is significant slack in the labour market, as well as extreme pressures on infrastructure and housing.
However, I can accept that there is a case for temporarily relaxing skilled migration visa rules in places where labour is tight owing to one-off factors. Darwin is a case in point, whereby the $34 billion Ichthys gas project outside of the city has driven labour away from Darwin, dropping the unemployment rate to low levels (see next chart).
The key will be ensuring that the program is abolished once labour pressures subside, as well as not expanding it to other areas where unemployment is more of a problem.
Otherwise, the program will be seen as another attempt by the Coalition to undermine local workers’ employment, pay and conditions.
