Australia is moving away from its original position as a settler state and toward a market-based immigration model
Often considered the holy grail of immigration models, Australia’s system for permanent immigration has attracted international attention for the generally strong labour market performance of the immigrants it admits. Since the mid-1990s, the system has moved away from a focus on family reunification to place greater emphasis on skills for permanent and temporary workers, but notably it has also been refined to better address the country’s labor market needs.
A report by the Migration Policy Institute’s Transatlantic Council on Migration entitled The Evolution of the Australian System for Selecting Economic Immigrants sets out the significant policy changes that have taken place in Australia over the last two decades. The changes have created a system of selection that is predominantly driven by the needs of employers and businesses and has become increasingly temporary in nature as access to permanent immigration has narrowed.
As Australia’s approach to the selection of permanent, skilled labour has changed and the country is looks to encourage temporary economic migration across all skill levels, it has adjusted its points system to give more weight to education and English language skills, and has also shortened the list of occupations under which an immigrant can apply for entry. Australia makes good use of its SkillSelect platform, a relatively new digital system that enables officials to adjust the points required for entry on an ongoing basis dependent on the supply of applicants and the market’s needs.
The Migration Policy Institute’s report contains several recommendations useful for other countries seeking to develop a targeted immigration selection system. These include:
- Regular adjustment and management of immigrant selection criteria to ensure persons fill actual labor market skills gaps.
- The periodic review and adjustment of selection procedures in order to avoid potential backlogs, for example, SkillSelect allows some qualification checks to occur earlier in the application process.
- The need for the recruitment of low- and semi-skilled workers, as well as the highly-skilled to avoid the recruitment of immigrants in these sectors by workers on visas originally intended for other purposes.
