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Australia August 17, 2011 – As Australia’s chronic skills shortages kick in, driven by the country’s resource and construction boom, Australian employers are now looking for UK skilled migrant workers to fill the local workforce gap and work in Australia.

As Australia’s business investment surged ahead by 24% in the second quarter of this year, driven by the liquefied natural gas projects and the government’s broadband network, Australian employers have found themselves hounded by recruiting difficulties.

The sectors mostly affected by recruiting difficulties include construction and engineering, sales/marketing and trades – mostly at a professional and technical level.

According to one of Australia’s biggest contractors, Leighton Holdings, until the country can cover and resolve its labor shortages, it is refusing to bid for new contracts.

The firm’s CEO, David Stewart, says that due to lack of skilled workers, its ability to fulfill new contracts, like Western Australia’s multibillion dollar Gorgon project, is being severely constrained.

Furthermore, Mr. Stewart asked for reforms in Australia’s migration policy that will allow people to come in and would make applying for Australia working visa easier.

Resources, oil and gas as well as construction, property and engineering sectors are now particularly booming in Australia with projects from the growing LNG market, with a grand total (including all projects either under construction or in the pipeline) of close to $250 billion as well as the Australia’s other projects valued at A$357 billion ($394 billion) that were either committed to or in progress at the end of June, an increase of A$70 billion over the previous three months.

The profusion of new projects is fuelling vacancy activity, yet demand is so great that it drives labor shrtages which prompted the Australian companies to look overseas, particularly from UK, for hiring skilled workers.

The skills shortage is so acute that these shortages could lead output to be hampered unless appropriate skills are secured.

The Australian government has predicted that the resources and construction industries combined will need an additional 260,000 workers over the next five years to staff new projects and to replace the country’s ageing workforce.

In an attempt to resolve the skills shortages, the Western Australia’s government has set up a “skilled migration portal” in order to assist potential migrants with information about job prospects, rents, salaries and questions about how to apply for Australian working visa.

The Federal Government has recently allocated 16,000 places for the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme to make it easier for employers to recruit workers from overseas, and to ease the path of temporary workers to permanent residency by making it easier to apply for work visa Australia.

source:
australiamagazine