Australian businesses have been able to identify and attract much needed skills with greater success under the Government's Migration Programme in 2005-06. Due to improved targeting by the Government of skilled migrants there has been a 500 per cent increase over the previous year in the number of Skilled Independent migrants with occupations in short supply in Australia. “Skilled migration is critical to Australia's future. It is not overstating it to say that skilled migrants are the engine room of the economy," the Minister says.

Employer sponsored migration was up 17 percent, from 13,020 to 15,230 visas issued, and State/Territory sponsored visas were up 94 percent. In fact, more than 68 percent of the total number of visas approved in 2005-06 were issued under the Skill Stream.

The immigration target in 2005-06 was set an upper limit of 143,000 and 142,930 visas were issued under the programme. The upper limit for the 2006-07 Migration Programme has been set at 144,000 places which includes 97,500 places in the Skill Stream and 46,000 in the Family Stream. The Programme will continue to focus on the skills that business and industry are looking for but will also meet legitimate close family reunion needs. Therefore, there has been an increase in the size of the Family Stream with 3000 extra places becoming available, 1000 of these being for spouse visas. The increased demand for spouse visas is driven by two main factors – the increasing global mobility of young Australians and the larger sponsorship base created by the increased skilled migration intake.

The health sector has become the nation’s top user of temporary skilled migrants (457 visa holders) with 5,680 primary visas (excluding dependants) being granted to temporary skilled migrants in 2005-06 to work in the health and community services sector – most of them nurses and doctors. The sector takes over from the property and business services sector as the biggest user of temporary skilled migrants. About 20 percent of 457 visa holders obtain permanent residence which highlights the success of the temporary skilled migration programme.

In September 2006, nine new professions were added to the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL). Regular adjustments to the MODL help to address ongoing shortages in the skilled Australian labour market by ensuring individuals with specialist skills who are in demand are selected for migration to Australia.

In order to ensure that the migration programme is delivering the maximum benefits to Australia, the Government continuously fine-tunes the selection methodologies. As the key aim of the skilled programme is to select migrants who will find skilled jobs quickly it is recognised that good English and relevant work experience are essential to achieving this result. Therefore, in order to give migrants the best chance of success in the Australian labour market the Government has increased the base level of English language proficiency, increased the allocation of bonus points to applicants who achieve English language scores at above the base level and also will now place greater emphasis on skilled work experience as a factor in the points test.

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