Canberra 14 August, Canberra : Canberra, Aug 14 : Australian government has announced an increase in the number of immigrants entering the country.Brendan O’Connor, minister for training and skills O’Connor, the minister for skills and training, said the newly formed Labor government was looking at raising the annual cap on migration from the current cap of 160,000 with more skilled migrants, such as health care workers as well as IT specialists, to address labor shortages caused by coronavirus epidemic, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) there were 480,100 jobs available in Australia in May which is which is an increase of over 100 percent from February 2020, before Australia close its international frontier.
The new cap on immigration will be discussed with employers and trade unions at the summit on skills and jobs held by the government in September.
“We’ve been given a lot of work ahead of us to tackle the shortage of skilled workers, but Labor will be more proactive in educating the workforce locally and cut down on the exploitative practices of foreigners,” O’Connor said on Sunday.
He also emphasized that standards should not be changed.
“We must be more intelligent in assessing people’s skills,” he told Nine Entertainment newspapers.
“Everywhere we go, there are shortages in the traditional trades and advanced manufacturing, tourism, retail and the tech industry aged care nurses, doctors.”
O’Connor said it wasn’t an “binary option” between boosting skilled migration and the training of local workers.
The rise in the cap on migrant visas is likely to be formally announced in the budget for the federal government which Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down in October.
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