NEW DELHI: Good news for Indian professionals. Australia has increased quota for highly skilled immigrants by 5,000, thereby raising the total number to 1,02,500 for 2007-08. Indians now are the third-largest group of immigrants, next to the British and New Zealanders. Indians make up 10% of new arrivals.



While 5,000 places have been added to the skilled migration stream, the family stream will remain at 2006-07 level of 50,000. Australia is facing labour shortage in the highly-skilled job segment. The country is also experiencing its lowest unemployment in 30 years. In this context, increasing the number of migrants to the country has become quite imperative.

The skilled migration programme allows foreign workers to enter Australia under various visa categories. Those with skills in labour-shortage sectors who have the required criteria can live and work in Australia without a sponsor. Others can come to work in Australia by being sponsored by an employer.

As the demand for foreign skilled workers increases, the Australian government has also put in place stringent laws to ensure that employers do not exploit the foreign lot.

Earlier this month, the Australian government announced changes in the Migration Act to this effect, which include new civil penalties for employers who flout the law, increased powers for the department of immigration and citizenship (DoIC) and the office of workplace services to investigate employers, and faster processing of applications for some employers.

For the prospective skilled immigrant worker, the changes will mean a higher English language proficiency requirement. Employers that fail to meet their sponsorship obligations will face tougher penalties.

The measures were introduced to ensure that foreign skilled workers are not paid less than the minimum salary or used in jobs for which they are overly qualified such as unskilled jobs or the ones that have not been listed under Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL).

Urmi A Goswami, The Economic Times

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