Immigration reform: It’s a matter of skill

On the other hand, the Commonwealth has often provided compelling economic and budgetary benefits from granting permanent residence visas to skilled and business migrants, as measured by economic models and surveys of recent migrants.Hardly surprising really, that those immigrants who are one or more of the following: mostly under 45, keen, educated or rich, are indeed more of a benefit than a cost to the rest of us.

The Department of Immigration & Citizenship estimated that the migrant contribution in the skilled program at 2009–10 levels was about $716 million in the first year after their arrival. Their cumulative contribution to the Consolidated Revenue increases to over $10 billion after a decade.

The Department has demonstrated that skilled migrants are younger and more likely to be working in a full-time jobs compared to workers in the general population. The participation rate of skilled migrants is 94 per cent compared to 65 per cent for the general Australian population.

The total number of economic migrants is made of three main groupings:

Employer Sponsored, comprised of the Employer Nominated Scheme and the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme. These are two avenues whereby Australian employers can seek to nominate skilled workers from overseas for permanent residence.

These programs allow employers to recruit skilled workers to fill skilled vacancies in their business and respond effectively to changing economic conditions.As mentioned earlier, the RSMS cap was lifted by 16 000 for the year to June 2012. primarily to allow for the swelling demands in resource rich Western Australia and Queensland.

General Skilled refers to professionals and other skilled migrants who are not sponsored by an employer, but who have skills in particular occupations required in Australia.

Business Skilled comprises business owners or investors who wish to undertake business activities in Australia, which will assist in the economic development of Australia.

A comparison of the 2009-10 immigration statistics (being the last year where comprehensive figures are available) with the 2011-12 is shown below:

2009-10 Migration Program (rounded and excluding refugees)