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Immigration Numbers Going Down

One of the countries that have been popular with many people planning immigrations is Australia. In fact, this can be easily proved by the long lines of Australian immigration applicants getting their visas in the embassies daily. However, the status of immigration in the country seems to be on the verge of change. According to the latest statistics, long term immigration to the land down under has actually gone down by a significant level. In a tally provided by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) long term stay arrivals for the month of February dropped by around 44 percent as compared to the numbers posted in January. The DIAC further added that the number of permanent residency arrivals also fell by almost the same mark for the the month.

One of the biggest contributing factors that officials say affected the number of immigrants coming to the country were the recent changes made by the immigration department to the Skilled Migration Program. These changes involved removing more than a hundred low level positions from the Skilled Occupation List to make way for more high level positions. The department said that these moves were necessary in order to cope up with the shortage of high level workers that the country is currently experiencing. However, many experts said that the move is likely to affect the number of immigrants coming to the country. They said that many of the people coming in to Australia do so by getting low level positions. They added that the removal of these jobs from the list effectively stops a large number of applicants from coming into the country.

Experts also said that these changes also severely affected the number of foreign students enrolling in the country. Since many of these students are taking vocational courses in preparation for filing of permanent residency in the country (which was trhe norm before), the removal of these positions from the list meant that their opportunities have now been cut. Furthermore, they said, the stricter skills requirements have also greatly limited the number of applicants that will be able to enter the country.

Another major factor that many say contributed to the decline in immigration to Australia in the last few months is the stricter security measures that are being implemented by the DIAC on applicants. One of these is the proposed issuance of biometric visas to applicants coming from so called high risk countries.those applicants coming from these countries have said that these moves are seemingly done to prevent them from entering the country, a claim that the DIAC has refuted. However, the immigration department is optimistic that migration rates will be up again in the coming months. They also added that the initial effects of the changes are only temporary and will likely wane down from here on.

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