Australia: Permanent migration cap raised for first time in decade

Australia is raising its cap on permanent migration for the first time in a decade to help fill massive workforce shortages.

It will take up to 195,000 people this financial year – an increase of 35,000.

The pandemic and Australia’s tough border policies have exacerbated staffing gaps in many sectors.

Workers from countries including China, India and the UK – Australia’s top sources of migration – are needed to fill them, the government says.

There are more than 480,000 job vacancies across the country, but with unemployment at an almost 50-year low, employers are struggling to fill the gaps.

The hospitality, healthcare, agriculture and skilled trade industries have been particularly hard hit.

Worker shortages have thrown airports into chaos, left fruit to rot on trees, and put immense pressure on hospitals, a national jobs summit in Canberra heard this week.

“Our focus is always Australian jobs first… but the impact of Covid has been so severe that even if we exhaust every other possibility, we will still be many thousands of workers short, at least in the short term,” Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said.

Agencies