Best options for skilled foreign workers to migrate to Australia

Australia has an impressive record of offering up to 160,000 Australian PR visas per year. In fact, Australia has one of the biggest migration programs in the world.

But, as the COVID-19 pandemic became a roadblock in the immigration scene of Australia, there has been a decrease in the flow of immigrants under Australia immigration. This has presented an opportunity to those already in Australia on temporary visas to take the opportunity to get permanent residence in the country.

The skilled migration stream has the distinction of allocating the most visas. This stream is divided into categories of:

• Employer-sponsored
• Skilled independent
• State/Territory nominated
• Regional
• Global Talent Independent program
• Business Skills

Subclass 186 - Employer nomination scheme

Under this subclass, Australian businesses get to nominate a skilled foreign worker for a permanent residence visa. The applicants must be under 45 years of age and must have a minimum work experience of 3 years in their nominated job. They also need to have competent English language skills.

A relevant skilled occupations list must have the occupation listed for which the applicant has applied. Priority has been given to certain occupations related to nursing, engineering, and medical fields considering their significance in the COVID situation.

Subclass 189 - Skilled Independent visa

Subclasses 189, 190, and 491 are skilled migration visa subclasses. They are visas that are issued based on points. The minimum number of points required to be eligible for the visa is 65. The factors considered to calculate the points include age, English language proficiency, work experience, and qualification of the partner.

Subclass 189 enables the visa holder to reside and work in Australia at any location subject to no explicit conditions.

Subclass 190 - State & Territory sponsored visa

The governments of Australian territories and states can nominate immigration applicants for Subclass 190 and Subclass 491 visas. Subclass 190 is a permanent visa while Subclass 491 is a provincial visa.

If a state nominates a candidate, he/she gets 5 additional points. These additional points can be used to meet the threshold required to be met to apply for a skilled visa: I.e., 65 points.

For this subclass, the applicant must have a nomination first from an Australian state.

The upper limit for Australia’s migration program for the financial year 2020-21 is 160,000. But, due to the COVID-19 situation, the actual number of permanent visas granted is expected to be a lot lesser.

Close to half of the program is constituted with the Skill stream. Under this stream, there are 79,600 places of which 13,000 have been reserved for the Global Talent category.

The family stream features 77,300 visas and partner visas constitute 72,300 places. Parent visas take up 4,500 visa places.

What remains in the program is special eligibility for which 100 places have been taken and child visas for which 3,000 visas have been taken.

If you are looking to Study, Work, Visit, Invest or Migrate to Australia, talk to Y-Axis, the World’s No.1 Immigration & Visa Company.

If you found this blog engaging, you may also like…

Australia: Economy and employment in 2021 and beyond