Announcement of Skilled Migration list delayed by Australian immigration department

Australia, 1st May: Australian immigration department has delayed the announcement of new SOL (Skilled Occupation List) until May.

Earlier, the DIAC (Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship) had stated that the new SOL will be announced latest by 30th April, 2010. However, the DIAC said a report is from Skills Australia is being considered.

The delay in announcing the new SOL is likely to result in loss of a large number of foreign students wanting to immigrate to Australia on Australian student visas since students depend on the skills list to select their respective study courses.

The delay by the Australian government comes in the wake of fears that rapid changes in the Australian immigration policy are causing big losses as the figures for the last month are revealing decline in the number of foreign students’ enrolments.

In March 2009, foreign students’ enrolments had increased by 20.9 percent while the growth in the foreign students’ enrolments has been just around 5.9 percent in March 2010. The decline in the overseas student enrolments has been clearly visible in English language courses. 

Immigration advisors are also seeing the delay in the announcement of new SOL as a big blow to overseas students. 

Skills Australia had stated way back in February that the new SOL should include managerial, professional, trade and technical occupations to fulfill the requirements of trades and professions across the labor force.

Also, it had stated that it would be considering various factors such as whether or not the less supply of few occupations were resulting in increased community or economic costs in Australia if different skills are used for occupations and whether or not any occupation considered to be chosen for the new SOL happens to be a skilled occupation.

Skills Australia happens to be an independent body providing guidance on various present as well as future needs and developments of workforce skills in Australia.

Thousands of overseas students depend upon the SOL every year and any further delay will significantly affect the offshore student market of Australia which China accounting about 27 percent of total enrolments and largest share of revenue for Australia.