Australia – Government to introduces new ‘geographically restricted’ skilled worker visas

Australia’s government announced that it will introduce two new skilled worker visas, covering 23,000 entrants and requiring three years’ residence in regional areas in an attempt to ease congestion in major cities.

The Skilled Employers Sponsored Regional visa will have places increased from 6,000 to 9,000, and state and territory sponsored visa places will increase from 8,500 to 14,000, totaling 23,000.

The regional skilled worker visa’s requirement of three years’ residence is a pre-condition for securing permanent residency in the country.

The announcement came as Prime Minister Scott Morrison unveiled a plan to cap permanent migration at 160,000 for the next four years, compared to the previous cap of 190,000.

The effective date of the cap is 1 July 2019.

According to the Australian Financial Review, the government expects that having spent that long in a regional centre, fewer migrants will choose to head for the big cities.

The Guardian reports that during the 2017-18 intake of 111,000 skilled migrants, 8,500 of them were granted a visa that required two years’ residency in a regional area before becoming eligible for permanent residency.

The government added that people entering Australia under the new regional visas will be given priority processing and will have access to a larger pool of eligible jobs.

Australia accepted 162,417 permanent migrants in the past year, which was a decrease of more than 10% on the previous year.

Source:: http://www2.staffingindustry.com/row/Editorial/Daily-News/Australia-Government-to-introduces-new-geographically-restricted-skilled-worker-visas-49367