Australian immigration welcomes nurses, teachers, engineers, says ‘No’ to butter makers, cooks, hairdressers

Australia, 17th May: In what is being likely seen as further tightening of immigration policies, Australian immigration department shut the doors on cooks and hairdressers wanting to immigrate to Australia and become permanent residents in Australia.

The new trimmed Australia immigration’s skills-shortage list has crossed out a total of 219 occupations from the older list with 400 skilled occupations. So, the new Australian immigration policy will put an end to those using short term study courses in hairdressing or cooking as a route to Australian immigration and then gain PR (permanent residency) in Australia after becoming trained professionals in these skills.

Announced today, the new Skilled Occupation List (SOL) produced by Skills Australia (a statutory body) has also excluded dance teacher, hotel manager, interior decorator, naturopath, acupuncturist, piano tuner and journalist from its skilled category.

It may be mentioned that out of the total 41,000 skilled visas issued by Australian immigration, 12 percent were of cooks and hairdressers. And nearly 75 percent of the total Australian visas under skilled occupation category went to Indians wanting to pursue such courses in Australia.

Meanwhile, Australian immigration minister Chris Evans clarified that foreign students possessing requisite skills needed by Australian economy are still welcome to apply for permanent Australian immigration or getting sponsored by employers in Australia.

Senator Evans maintained that the new list is a scientific analysis of the skills needed by Australian economy.

Hence, the new Australian skilled migration program will be based on the present and future skills needed by Australia.

However, Australian immigration does not need nearly hundreds of thousands of hairdressers and cooks who had applied for Australian immigration under the previous Australian government, the immigration minister maintained. The new SOL will ensure that the skilled migration program is supply-driven rather than demand-driven. 

He said that Australian immigration must give priority to nurses over 12,000 unsponsored cooks especially if hospitals in Australia are in need of increased number of nurses.

The new SOL released by the DIAC (Department of Immigration and Citizenship) will come into effect from 1st July, 2010 onwards and will be applicable to all applications under General Skilled Migration program lodged with effect from 1st July this year.