The number of permanent visas offered by the Department of Home Affairs in April have collapsed by 97% versus the same time last month:
Only 50 invites for subclass 189 [skilled] visa were sent out this month by the Department of Home Affairs, compared to 1,750 invitations issued in March 2020…
“So that Australia can deal with the immediate and post-recovery impacts of COVID-19, the Government is closely monitoring migration and visa settings to ensure they are consistent with public health measures, are flexible and do not displace job opportunities for Australians,” the [Department of Home Affairs] spokesperson added.
This is a good result. The permanent migrant intake is dominated by spurious ‘skilled’ visas and has set aside 108,000 places this year:
Advertisement
With skills shortages now virtually non existent across the economy, there is zero rationale in maintaining such a strong permanent migrant program.
Halving the permanent migrant intake back to historical levels is necessary to better balance labour supply with demand, as well as to safeguard living standards.
To keep immigration artificially high will only worsen the unemployment queues and further depress wages.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
