The federal government launched a new skills visa in December, with the aim of attracting migrants who can make a significant contribution to the economy and fill roles where no Australian workers are available.
However, migration agents claim that processing times for the new visa are too long, hampering the ability of employers to recruit the skilled overseas workers they need.
“The core skills visa is meant to be processed within a median of seven days and the high-paid specialist skills visa is supposed to be finalised within 21 days on median”, The Australian reported.
“Only 50% of applications for the core skills stream would be finalised within 43 days under current processing times, Home Affairs figures reveal, with 90% processed within 84 days”.
Migration agents warn that Australia risks losing skilled workers to other jurisdictions because of the slow processing times.
“Some migration advice professionals are reporting delays of months and months for what should be our premium skilled temporary visa”, Migration Institute of Australia chief executive Peter van Vliet said.
“Genuine 482 visa applications should be processed in weeks, not months. These delays are impacting them, their clients, but most importantly Australian businesses facing skills shortages and bottlenecks”.
There are two visas under Labor’s Skills in Demand (482) visa program.
The Core Skills Stream has an application fee of $3,115.00 and enables employers to import temporary migrants to work in Australia for up to 4 years or up to 5 years if you are a Hong Kong passport holder.
The job must be on the Core Skills Occupation List (CSOL), which includes 456 roles; the applicant must have at least one year of relevant work experience in your nominated occupation or a related field and must be paid at least $73,150.
The Specialist Skills Stream has an application fee of $3,115.00 and enables employers to import temporary migrants to work in Australia for up to 4 years or up to 5 years if you are a Hong Kong passport holder.
The applicant must have at least one year of relevant work experience in your nominated occupation or a related field and must be paid at least $135,000.
Wage levels, rather than easily circumvented regulations or inefficient skilled occupation lists, ultimately serve as the best guide to skills.
Australia’s median full-time wage is currently around $90,000, which is dragged down by unskilled workers. Thus, the minimum wage threshold for ‘skilled’ migrants should be set above this level to ensure that Australia’s skilled visa system is generally skilled.
Obviously, the Core Skills Stream fails this basic test, as the temporary skilled migration income threshold (TSMIT) is only $73,150, nearly $17,000 (19%) below the median full-time wage. The Core Skills Stream is really a lower-paid, lower-skilled visa.
By contrast, with a TSMIT of $135,000, the Specialist Skills Stream is a genuinely high-skilled visa and should be prioritsed by the government.
More broadly, lifting the TSMIT above the median full-time wage would deliver Australia a lower volume of highly skilled and paid migrants, reducing population pressures, raising productivity, and ultimately delivering more tax revenue per worker to the federal budget.
Ultimately, it is difficult to argue that a migrant is highly “skilled” when they are paid significantly less than the median full-time wage, which itself is pulled down by unskilled workers.
