Earlier this week, Treasurer Jim Chalmers admitted that Australia’s net overseas migration (NOM) would easily exceed the October Budget’s 235,000 forecast, tipping around 300,000 net migrants to arrive:
Dr Chalmers said it was reasonable to expect migration to be higher given extreme labour shortages were creating strong pull factors and as the government worked to reduce a massive visa backlog.
“We’ve got serious skills shortages and labour shortages in our economy that are acting as a handbrake,” he said on Monday.
