How Are Skilled Migrants Doing‪?‬

Australia has experienced a boom in job creation in recent years. This has mainly been at the skilled end of the workforce and particularly among those holding professional qualifications. However, as the accompanying article in this issue notes, the level of domestic training has fallen way below that needed to fill these skilled occupations. (1) In response, the Coalition Government turned on the skilled migration tap. It increased the skilled component of the settler migration program from 53,520 in 2001-02 to 102,500 in 2007-08. Other sources of permanent migrants have also increased, including spouses and New Zealand citizens. This is partly because immigration begets more migration, most obviously when skill-selected migrants return home for a bride or groom or sponsor other family members. The bigger the recent migrant base the larger these flow-on movements become. To take one spectacular example, in 2006-07 some 39,075 spouses arrived in Australia from overseas or were granted visas onshore, up from 33,994 in 2004-05. (2) By comparison there are currently only about 111,000 marriages in Australia a year.