Population debate might cause skills shortage in Australia

Australia, 21st July: Continuing debate over Australia’s population might lead to serious skills shortage in Western Australia, warns the CCI (Chamber of Commerce and Industry) of Western Australia.

Several businesses in WA (Western Australia) that depend upon foreign workers will be seriously affected by Australia’s population debate, a top employer organization in WA cautioned.

The debate on curbing the growing population of Australia is being fuelled by planning and infrastructure chaos on the east coast. Hence, such problems are related to the state government planning and not with skilled immigration in Australia. These problems have nothing to do with poor systems and lack of adequate services for multiplying population of Sydney, stated Nathan Taylor, business policy manager of the CCI.

The issue is that population debate will not help in solving the problem of infrastructure problems which are actually related to lack of adequate planning, Taylor added.

He argued that Australia’s immigration system has introduced severely stricter norms for temporary immigration in Australia, especially during the global economic slowdown. And it is strongly being felt that such strict Australian visa rules will not allow immigrants possessing skills in high demand in WA to come to Australia.

Meanwhile, the state government is assured that the foreign immigrant workers needed to support the growing economy of WA, especially its business sector, will be available to balance the demand-supply.

In order to ensure that there is no shortage of skilled immigrants in WA, the government is making policies of state migration which will be considered by Australian government, stated Peter Collier, the Minister for Training.

Australia strongly needs both interstate and overseas skilled immigration, added Collier. Hence, the government of Australia will make desired amendments in Australian immigration rules in accordance with the needs of the state migration plan.

The imminent shortage of skilled immigrants in Australia is also being felt by the tourism industry of the country. And to make preparations for the next resources boom in Australia, Australian tourism has called for relaxing the backpacker visa rules for Australia.

Australia’s mining industry is likely to have shortage of nearly 36,000 skilled workers by the year 2015. Hence, the immediate task for the government of Australia is to make sure that such shortage is avoided by seeking necessary changes in Australia’s temporary migration program.