Australia and New Zealand Immigration News

Western Australia (WA) is sending a delegation to the United Kingdom and Ireland in a bid to lure British and Irish workers to migrate to the Australian state.

A plan to head off a shortfall of 150,000 skilled workers by 2017 was announced by Training and Workforce Development Minister Peter Collier. The resources industry will be particularly badly affected by skills shortages as a number of mining projects get underway in the near future.

More and more Indians are studying in Australia. This represents a significant resurgence in demand for student places after two years of declining student immigration levels. Declining student numbers over the past few years caused serious problems for Australian universities many of whom are very dependent on overseas student fee income.

According to Ruth Dyson, New Zealand Labour Party spokesperson on immigration, New Zealand is in dire need of more skilled immigration. There are skills shortages in many areas of the New Zealand economy. Immigration is good for the New Zealand economy. Government research suggests that even at existing immigration levels there will be a gain of $28 billion to the New Zealand economy by 2021.

Australia implemented major changes to its General Skilled Migration program on 1 July 2011. The pass mark for various visa subclasses is now 65 points. The age limit has also been raised from 45 years of age to 50.

Population levels in New South Wales (NSW) are dropping dramatically; Net migration has gone down fifty percent in the last two years, caused in part by the Australian government making it more difficult to obtain skilled migration visas and student visas.

The economic boom in Australia means more and more skilled labour shortages.

New Australian sponsored research shows that refugees in Australia are "likely" to take advantage of work opportunities in regional areas, engage in entrepreneurial endeavors, and undertake volunteer work, benefiting Australian society as a whole.

The report, Economic, Social And Civic Contributions Of First And Second Generation Humanitarian Entrants by Professor Graeme Hugo is the first comprehensive study that also looked at second-generation humanitarian migrants.