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From 12 March 2010, all applicants applying for either a Skilled—Regional Sponsored (subclass 487) visa, Skilled—Independent (subclass 885) visa or Skilled—Sponsored (subclass 886) visa will be able to use an existing suitable skills assessment to lodge a valid visa application.

This will allow applicants nominating a trade occupation for the above visa subclasses to provide a skills assessment pre-dating 1 January 2010 and is in line with the minister’s announcement on 8 February 2010.

This change should alleviate the concerns of international students and stakeholders regarding the amendments introduced on 1 January 2010. These amendments required onshore General Skilled Migration applicants who nominated a trade occupation to provide a skills assessment dated on or after 1 January 2010 to make a valid application. Read the full story

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As a result of the recent General Skilled Migration (GSM) changes we wrote about on the 8th of February, a review of the GSM Points Test is to be undertaken in the first half of 2010 and a discussion paper will be placed on the department’s website for public comment until 12 March 2010.

The discussion paper has now been published and an excerpt of the paper is provided below:

The review of the General Skilled Migration (GSM) Points Test is part of a comprehensive reform of the skilled migration program. The Government has agreed on the following important principles which should underpin a new Points Test: Read the full story

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The Australian Minister for Immigration yesterday announced significant changes to the General Skilled Migration (GSM) program.

Changes include:

• Cap and Cease of offshore GSM applications lodged before 1 September 2007
• A new Skilled Occupations List (SOL) to come into effect in mid 2010
• Abolition of the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL)
• Revocation of Critical Skills List (CSL) from mid 2010
• Changes to Processing Priorities and introduction of new State Sponsorship arrangements
• Pre 1 Jan 2010 Trade Skills Assessments will be accepted by DIAC from 1st Quarter 2010

Many of these changes have transitional provisions to ensure that the impact on international students studying in Australia are minimised. Read the full story

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Today, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, announced a number of changes to the General Skilled Migration program.

 Let’s look at the key changes. We’ll cover these changes in more detail further on in this article.

• Offshore General Skilled Migration Visa Applications made before the 1^st September 2007 will be capped and then ceased.
• The current Critical Skills List (CSL) will be revoked and will be replaced by a new Skilled Occupations List (SOL) effective from the middle of 2010.
• The current Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL) will be revoked and replaced with the same (and more targeted) Skilled Occupations List.
• The General Skilled Migration (GSM) Points Test will be reviewed to evaluate the effectiveness of the current test.
• New priority processing arrangements will be introduced for certain skilled migration visas.

Quite a lot to take in huh? We’ll try to break down the changes into a little more detail and as always, if you get stuck or have any further questions then feel free to pop into our forums. Read the full story

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Skilled Independent Migration Visa is one of the categories within the General Skilled Migration or Skilled Visa group which can be applied for both on-shore or from within Australia or off-shore or applicant is not in Australia.

The General Skilled Migration caters to those who are not sponsored by an employer and the applicant applies on the strength of his own qualification in this type of visa.

Generally, the applicant must have skills and qualifications for an occupation listed on Australia’s Skilled Occupation List (SOL), must be over 18 and under 45 years of age, with good English language ability, and recent skilled work experience or a recently completed eligible Australian qualification, among others. Read the full story

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This article sets out in simple terms the main Australian visas that are available to a working holiday traveller in Australia. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but a useful summary giving guidance on some key visa options.

Understanding your options The first step is to categorise each visa. Determine whether the visa is an independent visa option, obtainable by the applicant alone? Or does the visa require the sponsorship of an employer, spouse, family member or state body for the visa to be granted? Read the full story

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Trades Recognition Australia (TRA) has now released details of the Job Ready Program.

The Job Ready Program will affect international students completing trade qualifications (eg cookery, hairdressing) in Australia and who wish to apply for General Skilled Migration.

The Job Ready Program will be a 4-step process, and the total cost will be about $4,500. 

1. Provisional Skills Assessment
2. Job Ready Employment
3. Job Ready Workplace Assessment
4. Job Ready Final Assessment

Within this article we will cover the four step process in a little more detail and will try to summarise the effect of the change on your own visa application. 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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VETASSESS conducts assessments for over 200 occupations for people applying to migrate to Australia under the General Skilled Migration (GSM) and Employer Nomination Schemes (ENS).

From the 1st of January 2010, VETASSESS will be changing the requirements for assessment against these “Generalist Occupations” which are managerial, administrative, professional and associate professional occupations.

The new assessment process will help to ensure that applicant’s who meet the requirements under the new process are job ready and have the relevant skills and qualifications for employment in Australia in their nominated occupation.

From 2010, in order to receive a positive assessment, you will need: 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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The Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL) is going to be overhauled whilst the Critical Skills List (CSL) will be phased out completely.

The Australian Department of Immigration is near to concluding its review of the MODL. As part of their review, the department will examine and report on the role and purpose of the MODL in targeting skill needs in relation to the General Skilled Migration (GSM) program, to complement the supply of tertiary qualified Australians.

It’s hoped that the review will enable DIMIA to use the MODL as a more strategic tool ensuring that skilled migration is better aimed at responding to future skill needs which cannot be addressed through domestic training and skills development.

The arrangements for the transition to the new MODL will be determined once the outcomes of the review are finalised. 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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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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The 2007-08 Migration Report released by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) shows that Australia’s migration programme is well on track to reach its targets and fill critical skills gaps in the job market, and that the UK continues to be the major source of Australia’s migrants.

The report shows that at the end of last year’s financial year, migration was 0.1 per cent below its planned levels, meaning Australian immigration officials gave 158,630 people permission to move to Australia.

The United Kingdom, India and China provided the largest sources of people emigrating to Australia (New Zealand citizens are excluded from statistics in the migration programme). UK residents accounted for 17.7 per cent of the migration programme (which is down on the year before from 31,401). From India and China came 22,148 and 20,729 nationals respectively, with India taking over China as the second largest source country. Read the full story

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The South Australian Government has finally reinstated the capital investment pathway to Australian skilled migration for those who lodged their visa application before September 1, 2007.

After 13 months of patient waiting, those skilled migrants wishing move to Australia using capital investment scheme can now finally proceed with their Australian visa application.

On the 1st September 2007, as part of changes to the Australian General Skilled Migration programme, the Australian government removed the right to gain five extra bonus points towards an Australian skilled migration application if the applicant invested a minimum $100,000 for at least one year in a nominated Australian bond.

The removal of the capital investment scheme meant that applications for skilled migration lodged after September 1, 2007 could no longer use the capital investment scheme to gain bonus points towards their application.

After reports of a scam involving unauthorised loans, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) then ruled that the capital investment scheme would no longer be open to any applications, even if they submitted their visa applications before September 1. This affected thousands of migrant hopefuls, who until now have been left without a pathway to Australian migration.

The South Australian Government Financing Authority (SAFA) is now officially reinstating the capital investment scheme for the General Skilled Migration program (bonus points for capital investment). However, this applies only to those applicants who applied under this category before 1st September 2007, and were instructed by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) to invest a minimum $100,000 for at least one year in a nominated Australian bond.

As it has been over a year since applications for migration under this category have been allowed, eligible applicants are encouraged to consult their migration agents before proceeding with their application to ensure they are eligible.

Applicants are also warned that the processing times of applications may be considerably delayed due to the expected influx of applications under this re-opened pathway to Australian skilled migration.

To discuss this change please feel free to post a response to the thread started in our forums here.

Article Source : visabureau.com

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In response to the current demand for IELTS test results for candidates with Student Visas expiring by 15 March 2009, a number of IELTS test centres throughout Australia have opened emergency places on February 7 and February 21 2009.

There are additional tests available in Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns, Rockhampton and Darwin.

These tests are for students based in Australia if your visa ceases on 15 March 2009 and you want to apply for General Skilled Migration.

You will only be able to secure one of these emergency test places by presenting proof that your student visa ceases on 15 March 2009 along with your passport. Read the full story

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