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Almost 90 per cent of temporary skilled migrants who were granted Subclass 457 visas in 2009-10 to date are managers and professional workers, new figures show.

The average total salary package for all new Australian temporary skilled migrant workers is almost $100,000 – an increase of $10,000 on the same time last year.

The highest paid workers on a Subclass 457 Australia visa were in the mining industry, with an average total remuneration of $169,000, followed by the financial and insurance services sector at $127,600.

Temporary skilled overseas workers in Western Australia were the highest paid with an average total remuneration of $114 800, followed by New South Wales ($101,100), Queensland ($97,900), Victoria ($94,200), Tasmania ($94,100), Northern Territory ($85,500), ACT ($83,600) and South Australia ($81,700). Read the full story

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Before moving down under to Australia for good, one of the best ways to get to know the place that one day may be your future home is by going on holiday to Australia.

Once you have decided to have an Australian holiday, the next thing to consider is to get your Australia visa. Before you could even think about scuba diving, outback tours, and lying in the pristine beaches, you should first consider getting an Australian visa.

Listed below are some helpful guidelines regarding Australia visa: Read the full story

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From the 1st of January, as part of the skills assessment process for certain onshore GSM applicants who nominate a trade occupation, applicants will be required to demonstrate that they are ‘job ready’.

This new requirement will be assessed through the Job Ready Program (previously referred to as the Job Ready Test). The Job Ready Program has been developed by the relevant assessing authority, Trades Recognition Australia (TRA), in consultation with industry and unions and will include a workplace assessment by a TRA approved assessor.

The new job ready requirement will ensure that people who wish to migrate to Australia as skilled migrants in trade occupations are able to participate in the labour market in the area of their skills and knowledge. Read the full story

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Prior to the 1st of January 2010, applicants applying for permanent migration based on one of the onshore General Skilled Migration (GSM) visa subclasses were required, at time of application, to provide evidence that they had applied for a skills assessment by the relevant assessing authority. At time of decision, a suitable skills assessment was required.

From the 1st of January 2010, applicants applying for either the Skilled – Independent (Migrant) Visa (Subclass 885), Skilled – Sponsored (Migrant) Visa (Subclass 886) or the Skilled – Regional Sponsored (Migrant) Visa (Subclass 487) will be required to have obtained a suitable skills assessment prior to applying for migration in order for the application to be valid and assessed for a decision. Read the full story

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Hey all. Not much to write about in the world of Australian immigration so I thought I’d write a little entry just to say hi.

I have a number of Google news alerts set up under various Australian Immigration categories on the basis that if anything happens then I’ll get to know about it quite quickly. Having said that, there doesn’t appear to be much of interest  happening right now.  

If you’re trying to enter Australia illegally then there are plenty of stories in the news about how NOT to do it.

Boat people (i.e. Folks trying to migrate illegally to  Australia on small boats) seem to be making headlines over here in Australia on almost a daily basis.

It seems the Aussie immigration folks are paying very close attention to Australian shores after a number of high profile incidents where boat after boat full of illegal immigrants were  turning up on Aussie soil, apparently unchallenged! Read the full story

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The Australian Immigration and Citizenship department have started issuing letters to visa applicants who have applied for Australian Residency under certain visa classes.

The letter confirms that priority will be given to applicants who are applying under the employer or state sponsored visa classes. In addition the letter also confirms that priority will remain for those holding a primary occupation which is listed on the Critical Skills List (CSL)

Essentially though, the letter goes onto confirm that if you do not fall into one of these three categories, it now looks almost certain that the processing of your application will be delayed into the 2010 – 1011 Migration program year.

The key text taken from the letter is as follows: Read the full story

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The Australian visa application fee increases have been formally announced, with the skilled migration fee set to increase by 20 per cent as of 1 July 2009.

The Australian Government reviews the Australian visa application fees on an annual basis, as part of the release of the Federal Budget release. Typically, fees will increase in accordance with changes in the Consumer Price Index, resulting in an increase of approx. AU$40 – AU$60 for the skilled migration visa application fee.

However, this year has seen a 20 per cent increase applied to some Australian visa application fees, including the skilled migration fee. Read the full story

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G’Day UK 2009 kicks off this weekend delivering two weeks of food, wine, cultural and business events.

Top of the list will be Australian immigration and tourism which will be sold to Brits interested in making the move Down Under.

Being a major source of skilled workers and tourists for Australia, organisers of G’Day Week have targeted the UK to showcase Australian immigration and Australian tourism.

G’Day UK 2009 is a chance for Australian celebrities, governments, businesses and agencies to show off the sunshine in Australia. Two week’s worth of events will showcase Australia as a place of investment, tourism, business, and more importantly, as a prime destination for skilled migrants. Read the full story

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Can you hear that……? Yup that’s the silence associated with the Australian Immigration Authority doing…..stuff!

It seems very quiet at the moment. My checks of all the usual sources of immigration news seems to be bringing with it very little in the way of updates.

Personally, there’s nothing fascinating to update you guys with either other than the fact that we are now into late Autumn and we had to put the heating on for the first time this morning.

Actually.. that is kind of interesting in a sad kind of way

Living in Australia there is no need for good old ‘central heating’. In the UK our central heating system had a handy ‘boost’ feature you could use when you needed to take the chill off!

You’d get home from work to a cold house, press the boost button and then wait 30 minutes for the water to heat up and circulate around the radiators scattered around your house, most of which only heated at 50% capacity because of the air which needed to be bled from the system in order for them to work properly. Read the full story

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Emigrating to Australia has always been a pretty hard thing to do. Unfortunately for many, the recent economic climate has made these challenges even greater.

All is not lost though as there are still other options available. One such option being the Australian Student visa. The folks at the visabureau.com have written a good article about the merits of emigrating to Australia utilising one of the Student pathways

To obtain a permanent Australian visa under the General Skilled Migration (GSM) program, it requires skills in a particular occupation and applicants must also meet basic criteria relating to age, English language ability and work experience (at least 12 months of skilled work experience in the previous two-year period).

However, overseas student graduates who have completed at least two academic years of study in Australia are an exception to this work experience requirement for permanent Australian visa applications. So, for many people who do not qualify for a permanent Australian visa under the GSM program, due to lack of recognised skills and/or lack of recent skilled work experience, studying in Australia becomes the quickest avenue to obtain a permanent Australian visa.

For example, the Trades Recognition Australia (TRA) assesses the skills of cooks for migration purposes and to recognise an overseas-trained cook, a minimum four to five year period is required by the TRA. A further 12 months of skilled experience is then also required, taking the permanent Australian visa plan for cooks up to five to six years. Read the full story

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An interesting post made on our forums has been getting quite a bit of attention recently.

The story goes that Chris Evans, the Australian Immigration minister has announced that Australia will cut its annual immigration intake for the first time in eight years due to the slowing economy and weakening demand for labour.

The story posted on “The Age” website quotes Chris Evans as saying:

“I expect the numbers of our programme to drop next year … as a reaction to the economic circumstances… It is fair to say that we expect the demand in the economy for labour to reduce. As it is a program very much linked to the demand for labour, we expect to run a smaller program.”

Australia has been accepting immigrants in record numbers in recent years and set a target for 190,300 immigrants this year, up 20% on the 2007-08 financial year and higher than the post world war II record of 185,099 in 1969-70.

About one in four of Australia’s 21 million people were born overseas, and Australia has been actively trying to attract skilled workers, with immigration fairs targetting university graduates and people with trades in Europe, Britain and India.   Then this thing  called the ‘  credit crunch’ started!

What does this mean for you?

Well,   Evans has  said that the final number of immigrants that Australia would accept has yet to be determined so hopefully this will mean that the 2009 intake will not be effected.

The Aussie government intend to make a final decision leading up to the national budget to be delivered on May 12.

As always,  as soon as we have this news, we’ll report it here at getting down under.

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So this post made by “CHB” who is one of our community members, brought my attention to some Legislation Changes planned for the 15th of February.

Unfortunately, the page on the Aussie Governments Website says nothing more than:

The Notice of Legislative changes are expected to be published on this website from 5.00 pm AEDT (GMT + 11) Friday 13 February 2009.

I’m not sure what the changes will be at this stage. A number of our community members are speculating a potential change to the MODL (Migration Occupations in Demand List) or some other changes associated with State Sponsorship.

All I can say is the downturn in the economy is causing problems for countries around the world including Australia.

Many ’skilled’ Australians are finding themselves out of work so this could have an impact on Australia’s requirements for skilled workers from overseas. Still, that’s just me speculating and I really hope it’s not bad news!

All I can suggest is don’t panic! As soon as we get the news we’ll report it here at Getting Down Under.

Cheers

Mark

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Where do I start is one of the most common questions asked by many of those looking to start a new life down under.

The answer to this question is usually decide which Visa option you’ll utilise to get yourself here, however there are so many visa options available for wannabee Aussies that deciding which one is the most suitable is often one of the trickiest parts of the whole process.

The process may now be a slightly more straight forward one as the Australian Department of Immigration has introduced a new tool to help guide users through the tricky process of choosing the most appropriate visa path.

The “Visa Wizard” is designed to help you find the Australian visa most likely to meet your specific circumstances and having had a play around with the wizard this morning it appears to be a pretty useful and user friendly tool Read the full story

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From time to time the Australian Department of Immigration make amendments and Legislation Changes which make obtaining an Australia Visa easier or indeed a litttle harder.

On the 26th of April a number of minor changes were announced. Most of these are not particularly relevant to most of our readers, however a  changes to the Student Visa class are worthy of a mention.

The regulations are amended to:

• Include work rights on all initial student visa grants thus removing the need for student visa holders to make a separate application for permission to work.
• Prevent students and their family members from undertaking work until the student has commenced their course of study or training by amending student visa work conditions.
• Define the term ‘week’ as it applies to student visa work conditions.

Read the full story

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If your thinking of going out to Australia on a Rekkie or similar prior to getting your Australian Perminant residency visa, then it may be useful for you to know about some changes that are going to be implemented to the ETA System from the 21st of April 2008.

An ETA is effectively a temporary  visa, however the ETA’s are issued electronically so  there is no stamp or label in your passport and there is no need for you to visit an Australian diplomatic office to submit an application.

The Australian Immigration department is going to continue to process most ETA applications instantly; however (and this is the important bit) in a small number of cases, some additional processing will be required.

If your ETA cannot be issued immediately you are requested to  check back in 12 hours to confirm whether your application has been successful.

As an ETA is valid for three months, I’d suggest that you allow plenty of time before visiting Australia to allow sufficient time for your application to be processed.

You can apply for your ETA from the official Aussie Immigration site by Clicking Here

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Well, its the first of September and the changes to the General Skilled Migration Program become effective today. (Note: applications lodged on or before 31 August 2007 will not be affected by these changes).

It looks like the IELTS test is going to make or break some Australian Visa Applications from now on and I wonder how this will impact the numbers of migrants coming in from Non English Speaking countries.

My personal opinion is that it’s pretty damn important that anyone coming into Australia is able to speak a reasonable level of English. I’ve already struggled trying to get to destinations when travelling to other cities with work. Read the full story

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