The level of dishonesty in the immigration debate is something to behold.
On Friday, the ABS released its Characteristics of Recent Migrants, November 2019 survey, which was quickly used as ammunition by SBS News to call for an increase in Australia’s immigration intake:
Experts say the number of migrants arriving in Australia with formal post-schooling qualifications highlights the economic benefits of migration and the need to return to normal levels as soon as possible post-coronavirus.
More than two thirds – or 69 per cent – of new migrants to Australia come with formal post-schooling education qualifications, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics…
Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics from the University of Technology Sydney Business School, said the findings were consistent with other similar surveys.
“It confirms that the migration program delivers very highly skilled and educated and qualified migrants. One of the great benefits of immigration, is we get people whose education has been paid for by the taxpayers of some other country,” he said.
“That’s long been the case where we have cherry-picked people, using our points systems to get those that are the “best” in terms of education, language skills, employment and age,” he added…
“There are those calling for a cut in immigration because of the crisis. It seems to me they’ve got it the wrong way around, we need to get immigration back as fully and quickly as possible, in order to benefit from the stimulus migration gives us. And that’s particularly needed now given the crisis and given the impact on the economy,” he said.
Conveniently, neither SBS or Jock Collins bothered to mention that migrants suffer far higher unemployment than the Australian born population:
As shown above, 6.6% of recent migrants were unemployed as at November 2019, versus only 4.7% of Australian born persons.
Thus, Jock Collins’ much taunted ‘skilled’ migration system is based around robbing developing nations of their talent so that they can lengthen Australia’s unemployment queue.
Let’s also remember that the Department of Home Affairs’ Continuous Survey of Migrants shows that migrants have significantly worse labour market outcomes than the general population.
Specifically:
- The median annual full-time earnings of migrants was $16,500 (22%) below the general population in 2017;
- The median annual earnings of migrants was $5,900 (10.2%) below the general population in 2017; and
- The unemployment rate of surveyed migrants (12.6%) was more than double the general population (5.5%) in 2017.
Even if we focus on the skilled stream only, both median earnings and unemployment is far worse than the general population:
These are shocking results. The skilled stream accounts for 60% of Australia’s permanent migration program. They are purported to be highly qualified and brought into Australia to overcome so-called ‘skills shortages’.
These ‘skilled’ migrants should, therefore, be paid well above the general population, which comprises both skilled and unskilled workers, as well as have very low unemployment.
The fact that ‘skilled’ migrants are paid less, and suffer higher unemployment, is a damning indictment of Australia’s purported ‘skilled’ immigration system, and is bonafide proof that it is undercutting local workers.
To restore integrity to Australia’s visa system, all skilled migrants (both temporary and permanent) should be required to be employer-sponsored (given their far better employment outcomes – see above charts) and paid at least at the 75th percentile of earnings (preferably higher).
This would ensure that the visa system is used sparingly by businesses to employ only highly skilled migrants with specialised skills, not abused by businesses as a tool for undercutting local workers and eliminating the need for training.
