Perth on the Look out For More UK Migrants

Perth on the Look out For More UK Migrants

Tweet

July 26, 2011 – As Western Australia is expected to face the prospect of a shortage of about 150,000 skilled workers in the resources and infrastructure sectors by 2017, the Australian federal government has undertaken measures to address the impending shortage.
With billions of new resource and infrastructure projects in the pipeline, the booming resource industry has placed a significant strain on its local labor market.

As the skills shortages are putting the State’s large resource and development projects at risk, need for immediate action is called for in order to ensure that the labor force needs of Western Australia is addressed.
To ensure that Western Australia’s economy will not be in jeopardy, the Federal Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has announced that Perth, the Western Australia’s capital, will be included in the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme.
Perth will now be listed as one of the regional hardship areas under the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme which will make it easier for Perth employers to recruit needed skilled migrant workers.
Under the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme, Perth employers, whether in the resources, construction, restaurant or other sectors are now qualified to have first access to the country’s 16,000 sponsored Australia migration visa places for foreign workers already in Australia. Perth’s employers can now take workers already in Australia under the sponsored 457 tourist visa to Australia program as well as sponsor skilled workers from overseas to apply for travel visas to Australia.
As Perth is under the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme, the Western Australia government is set to exhibit at September’s Down Under Live events in Birmingham and London as well as recruit workers for key skilled positions across the state.
As the WA government predicting 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, they are set to focus on hiring skilled workers as well as semi-skilled workers, such as apprentices.
Likewise, the WA’s government has set up a “skilled migration portal” in order to help potential travel visas Australia applicants with information about job prospects, rents and salaries.