Immigration to Australia

An economy that has been recording slow yet steady growth, a society that is open-minded and a place that has no dearth for scenic beauty, Australia is increasingly becoming a much sought-after destination for immigration. Recently, some changes have been introduced by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to the policy of immigration to Australia. It is of great importance to have a clear idea about these changes when you are applying for migrating to Australia. A major part of these modifications have been made with regard to the General Skills Migration Program that forms the key to helping skilled employees to obtain an Australian visa that can permit them to migrate to Australia and work in the country.

Basically there are several categories of people who may want to immigrate to Australia. Out of them the most common are:

    People who possess professional skills and training and want to immigrate to Australia in search of business or work prospects
    People who want to immigrate to Australia on a permanent basis
    Those who want to immigrate to australia in search of educational opportunities and may others.
    Those who want to immigrate to Australia under humanitarian considerations

The most common category under which people try to immigrate to Australia is the Skilled and business migration category. In this category the General Skills Program, as we all know, stands as the primary tool enabling skilled workers from all around the world to nurture their dream of migrating to Australia. The fundamental guidelines of this Program say that candidates who have acquired specialized training in any of the occupations that may be a part of the Skilled Occupations List are eligible to apply to immigrate to Australia. 

These applications will be thoroughly scanned and selection is done based on the appropriate age, qualification, previous or current work experience, proficiency of English language and skill competency levels. It is imperative that candidates wishing to immigrate to Australia must score a minimum pass mark in the Points based evaluation system. Last year changes have been introduced in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) that have changed the threshold levels of scoring in the tests for two categories of applicants –those who have nominated a trade occupation and those who have applied under the GSM category.

In February 2010 the policy of Australian immigration witnessed an important change when the inferences of the review of the Migration occupations in Demand List (MODL) were announced by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. This review felt the need to replace the current MODL by a new target-oriented occupations list that was more equipped to adhere to the growing labor requirements of the Australian market. Subsequently some important changes have occurred in the Australian immigration policy.

One significant change that has been made in the Skilled Migration Program with regard to Australian immigration is the introduction of a Critical Skills List (CSL) that stresses on providing work opportunities to Information Technology Professionals, engineering and medical experts.

The government of Australia has effected certain modifications in its Immigration Policy with the main aim of improving the entire process of selecting the best and most deserving candidates for Australian immigration that would be of great help to the development of the Australian economy.

With all the things that are happening in Australia, business visa holders are getting worried that the country's economy might be affected. Thus, they are urging the Australian government to take action and come up with solutions to the country's economic problems. It should be noted that Australia has one of the fastest growing economies in the world today. However, this does not mean that the country is free from any serious economic troubles. In fact, there are actually several matters that the country needs to resolve in order to maintain its current growth.

One of these major concerns here is with regards to a looming shortage of workers in the country. As one might have already, Australia has quite a small population (22 million) as compared to that of other developed countries. Thus, it has become heavily dependent on immigrant labor in order to sustain its current economic growth. However, as a lot of people might have already known, the Australian government, through the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, have instituted several changes to its immigration policies. Officials said that these reforms are intended to cut down on the excessive numbers of people entering the country. But many economic analysts and business people are worried that such a move can take away the immigrant numbers for labor.

And during the elections held last August, both the contending Labor and Liberal Parties are actually pushing for reduction in immigration numbers. This added to the worries by business people that a labor shortage would be indeed imminent. Newly elected Prime Minister Julia Gillard was, however, quick to allay these fear. She then laid out her so called sustainable population plan. Here, she said that immigration cuts would still push through. However, she added that immigration intake would be carefully managed in order to better take on the needs of the economy.

Another issue of major concern for many businesses in the country is the imminent pull out of stimulus packages. These packages where handed out by the government to companies in order to sustain them during the financial crisis that hit the world in 2007. And with the world's economy now returning to normal level, many analysts are predicting that the government will pull out the support. But not a few business are arguing that it might be to early to pull out the economic package. As it is, companies recover at different rates, which means that there are still those who have not yet completely  returned. However, the government assured that it will carefully study the situation first before going on a pull out.

And this one is actually not the end of the economic worries that Australia has to deal with. As it is, while the country was indeed able to recover from the world crisis relatively scratch free, there are still a lot of things that needed to be dealt with in order to fully return to its normal economic levels. And this is something that the Australian government needs to work hard on.