The lack of immigrants has impacted Australia’s population growth. In the country there is a lack of professionals and people who carry out trades. In addition, it has the lowest unemployment rate in the last century.
Australia raised its cap on permanent skilled immigrants to 195,000 in the current fiscal year, in order to address the shortage of workers in key sectors for the economy of the oceanic country, as announced on Friday by its Minister of the Interior, Claire O’Neil.
The measure assumes that Australia will receive this fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30, 2023, about 35,000 permanent skilled immigrants more than the previously set figure of 160,000.
“This may mean that more nurses and thousands of engineers more will come to settle in our country this year,” O’Neil said at the Jobs and Skills Summit, which was organized in Canberra by the Labor government of Anthony Albanese.
O’Neil insisted that “one of the priorities of the Labor Party is to move from focusing on short-term migrants to focus on permanence, citizenship and nation-building,” according to the transcript of his speech published on his website. ministerial.
The new Executive of Canberra, who after winning the elections last May ended nine years of conservative management, has promised to put more emphasis on permanent immigration to revitalize the economy after the covid-19 pandemic, which suffered from the closure of international borders and long confinements.
During the pandemic, Australian authorities suspended the entry of foreigners, while many visa holders, including temporary visa holders and international students, were forced to return to their countries of origin after being excluded from government aid to deal with the crisis.
The lack of immigrants, who work in sectors such as hostelry or health, picking fruit in rural areas or caring for the elderlyhas created a strong shortage of workers and has impacted the demographic growth of Australia, where one of the growing problems is the aging of the population.
The situation, which has been exacerbated by absenteeism linked to covid-19 infections, has put many workers to the limit, including nurses who have to work up to three shifts a day, or in airports, where flights have been delayed due to a lack of ground staff.
Australia, with 3.4% unemployment – the lowest rate in almost half a century – used to receive around 190,000 permanent immigrants in the past decade, but the Conservative government reduced the figure to around 160,000 before the pandemic due to problems. that were recorded in large cities such as Sydney and Melbourne in access to services and housing.