Migration
Australia’s
INVALUABLE
By Elizabeth Hoffman,
Regional Director West
Australia State office
Visa and Citizenship
Management
Division
u FOR 70 YEARS, IMMIGRATION HAS BEEN A MAJOR
FORCE in building and shaping Australian society. In the past decade alone, more than two million people have been added to the
population through international migration. This is far more than
through natural increase and equivalent to almost 60 per cent of
total population growth over the period1.
To maximise the economic benefits arising from the hundreds of
thousands of migrants settling in Australia each year, the Permanent Migration Programme has a strong emphasis on skills. More
than two-thirds of the 190,000 permanent visas granted in the
2014–2015 Programme were to migrants who came through Australia’s Skill Stream2.
22
The strengths and
benefits of a culturally
diverse workforce
www.smpmagazine.com.au | Autumn 2016
Resource
Permanent migration is complemented by even larger levels of temporary migration – currently more than 700,000 grants per year3.
– which are visas strongly orientated towards the needs of the labour market. This can be through 457 or Working Holiday Visas
employed in jobs that Australian businesses are unable to fill locally, or international students working part-time while they pursue a
world-class education at an Australian institution.
Collectively, that’s almost 900,000 temporary and permanent migrants being added to the economy every year; filling jobs ranging
from fruit picking to neurosurgery and everything in between.
Many of the direct economic benefits from migration can be readily
appreciated. For example, a perusal of data from the most recent
Census shows that while migrants make up just over a quarter of
the workforce, more than half of the GPs, dentists and chefs hail
from overseas. Migrants are also significantly over-represented in
the engineering, accountancy and IT professions4.
We also know from our own surveys and commissioned research
that most migrants find work quickly, which means they are helping
to stem the fall in labour market participation brought about by the
nation’s ageing population, and are making a positive contribution
to the budget5.