Last weekend, the department attended the
Working Abroad Expo in Kuala Lumpur and gave residents the opportunity to speak to our experts about migrating to Australian on a skilled visa. This opportunity presents itself again, specifically to anyone who lives in Singapore as DIAC will attend the expo in Singapore on May 11-12.
Our experts will be available to talk to you throughout the day about the different visa options available for living and working in Australia. They will also answer any questions about submitting an expression of interest through the SkillSelect website and will present each day from 1.15–2.00 pm.
When: May 11-12, 11.00 am to 4.00 pm
Where: Traders Hotel Singapore, 1A Cuscaden Road, Singapore
To register online or for more information, visit www.Workingabroad.net/exhibitions-and-events/singapore/
The Working Abroad Expo in Kuala Lumpur saw around 1000 attendees over the weekend of May 4-5. Many attendees found the information presented by our experts to be very valuable.
If you are unable to attend the expo in Singapore then you can learn more about SkillSelect by visiting www.immi.gov.au/skills/skillselect/
Remember, there is no better time to express your interest through SkillSelect, so read about our top 10 tips here:
Calling all students
Have you recently completed an English language test?
If so, we’d like to hear from you.
Fill in our short survey and let us know about your recent experience with English language tests. You can find the survey here www.surveymonkey.com/s/RG83W23 If you have any difficulties with the link please copy and paste it into your web browser.
Your feedback is important to us and will help inform the department’s review of its expanded English language testing arrangements for students.
The survey will remain open until 5pm AEST 20 May 2013.
Changes have been made to the cancellation regime for student visa holders who breach their visa conditions. Automatic and mandatory cancellations no longer exist and departmental officers now use a discretionary framework to consider breaches of visa conditions.
Automatic and mandatory student visa cancellations were abolished on 13 April 2013. This means that students who do not meet attendance or course progress requirements, or work for more than 40 hours per fortnight no longer face automatic or mandatory cancellation of their visa.
All international students are required to abide by their visa conditions, however if they do breach them they are now subject to a discretionary cancellation framework. The discretionary framework allows departmental officers to take the circumstances of an individual student into consideration when assessing visa condition breaches and making a decision on whether or not to cancel a visa.
The discretionary framework will lead to fairer outcomes for students. For example, it will enable the department to consider individual circumstances, such as where a student may be struggling with particular unit choices and could benefit from a change of course or education provider.
The move to a discretionary framework does not change an education provider’s responsibility to report a student for breaching a visa condition. Providers still have to advise a student when they have breached a visa condition that they may be reported to the department. The provider should also have in place a process for the student to appeal. If an appeal is unsuccessful an education provider must report the student to the department so that a case officer can consider the breach under the discretionary cancellation framework.
More information about the cessation of automatic and mandatory cancellation is available on the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s website www.immi.gov.au/students/.
We recently invited people who ‘like’ us on Facebook to take part in a live chat about SkillSelect.
The SkillSelect team spent an hour on the event page answering over 100 questions and engaging with 1188 users, proving to be our busiest live chat so far. Posts about the live chat reached a further 15 632 people, more than half our audience on Facebook.
There were many great questions asked during the live SkillSelect chat. So for those of you who have not yet liked our Facebook page, we have provided a quick snapshot of some of the questions raised and our answers.
Q. If I get exactly 60 points for the Skilled Independent (subclass 189) visa, how long does it take for my Expression of Interested (EOI) to be approved (for invitation)?
A. Invitation rounds are currently held twice a month. If you have 60 points at the moment, then you stand a good chance of being invited in the next couple of rounds provided your occupation has not reached its yearly invitation ceiling.
Q. What does it mean by Associate Degree or Advanced Diploma? Are they the same as a Bachelor degree?
A. You should contact your assessing authority and ask them to confirm if your qualifications are of the recognised standard to an Australian Bachelor Degree. You may also find the following post on the SkillSelect Technical Support site useful regarding claiming points for educational qualifications, visit https://skillselect.govspace.gov.au/2013/03/07/points-for-educational-qualification/
Q. Is there any change taking place to the Skilled Occupation List in July 2013?
A. The Skilled Occupation List (SOL) is reviewed annually. The current SOL was released by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) in June 2012 following advice from the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency. Consultation for the development of the 2013 SOL commenced in October/November 2012. The 2013 SOL is expected to be released by DIAC in mid-2013 and is expected to come into effect from 1 July 2013.
Q. Is there a minimum employment experience threshold needed to apply for a Skilled Independent (subclass 189) visa through SkillSelect?
A. There is no minimum employment experience threshold for this visa type. However, some assessing authorities may require a certain amount of employment experience to achieve a suitable skills assessment. If you have skilled employment experience, you can use this to increase your points in the points test.
Q. Is it possible for SkillSelect to send an acknowledgement automatically when medical reports are accepted/ assessed successfully?
A. SkillSelect and e-Visa are two separate systems and processes. SkillSelect is the database for selecting intending migrants for an invitation and e-Visa is where you lodge your visa. If you want to find out about your medical results you should contact your case officer or send an enquiry through our contacts page on the website, www.immi.gov.au
Q. Why do applicants (from non-English countries) need 7 in each band for IELTS?
A. For points tested visas it is a threshold requirement that a person have at least ‘competent English’, which is a minimum of six in each of the four components of the IELTS test.
To be awarded points for higher English language ability all applicants, regardless of citizenship, must demonstrate their level of competency by sitting an English language test such as IELTS as proof of their language competency.
As well, some skills assessing authorities require higher English language levels for certain occupations. You can confirm this with your relevant assessing authority.
More questions and responses are available on the department’s Facebook live chat page.
We’d like to hear from you on what topic you would most like to read from us next. Complete the poll below andthe topic with the highest number of responses will be the feature of our next post. Stay tuned!
Which of the following topics would you like to hear more about in our next blog?
- English language requirements (13%, 36 Votes)
- Skills assessments (14%, 40 Votes)
- How State and Territory Government nomination works in SkillSelect (25%, 70 Votes)
- Employment and qualifications in SkillSelect (27%, 77 Votes)
- EOI information and statistics (21%, 59 Votes)
Total Voters: 281
Working Abroad is one of the largest international recruitment exhibition companies and the department will present on Australia’s skilled migration policies and SkillSelect.
Our experts will talk about the different visa options available for living and working in Australia and will also be available to answer any questions about submitting an expression of interest through the SkillSelect website.
When: May 4-5 from 1.15 pm to 2pm each day
Where: Shangri-La Hotel, 11 Jalan Sultan Ismail, 50250 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
To register online or for more information, visit www.workingabroad.net/exhibitions-and-events/kuala-lumpur/
If you are unable to attend the Working Abroad Expo in Kuala Lumpur then you can learn more about SkillSelect by visiting www.immi.gov.au/skills/skillselect/
Remember, there is no better time to express your interest through SkillSelect, so read about our top 10 tips here migrationblog.immi.gov.au/category/skills-australia-needs-events/
Australian visa holders are giving employers, education providers and other third parties evidence of their visa status quicker and easier thanks to VEVO Email— a new tool that enables visa holders to email their details to a third party directly from VEVO.
Visa Entitlement Verification Online or VEVO is a free online service that gives visa holders, employers and other registered organisations access to visa entitlements and status information 24 hours a day.
Australian authorities no longer require visa holders to have a visa label in their passport, with VEVO now the preferred method for checking work, study and residence entitlements of visa holders.
VEVO helps millions of visa holders and organisations find and check visa details every year. And now that most visa holders need to pay a visa evidence charge for a printed visa label, more and more people are logging on to VEVO. This year we have seen a 36 per cent rise in visa holders using VEVO to check their entitlements.
Throughout this year, we are improving VEVO so it continues to meet the needs of visa holders and organisations, quickly and effectively. In March 2013, in addition to introducing VEVO Email, we made changes that allow users to see if a visa holder is currently in Australia or overseas. This is important because entitlements for the holders of some visas, such as student visas, can change according to whether they are in Australia, or yet to enter the country.
Following user feedback, we’ve also extended the VEVO password expiry time from 28 to 90 days, which will help users keep track of their password.
Later in the year, organisational users will also be able to manage their own VEVO account, making it easier for them to use VEVO at any time, as they will no longer need to wait for service centre support during standard office hours.
Watch our latest video about checking your details using VEVO.
Visit VEVO online to find out how VEVO can help you.
VEVO—anywhere, anytime, online.
The department has introduced new specialist teams to manage labour agreement requests. In addition to the specialist teams for meat processing companies and labour hire employers, we now have specialist officers for fishing and fast food industry labour agreements and a large team dedicated to managing the unique needs of resources sector employers.
We have also updated our information packs for standard, on-hire, and meat industry labour agreements. Each pack includes a PDF booklet and Word document containing a business case form and consultation template letter. These are all attached below.
In the six months to 31 December 2012, the department received 48 requests for access to a labour agreement. During the same period, 33 labour agreements were approved, 15 were declined and a further two were withdrawn.
Those approved included employers in agriculture and food processing, transport, specialist construction and engineering recruitment.
The main reason proposed agreements were declined was failure to demonstrate a genuine labour market need to recruit workers from overseas. Employers seeking a labour agreement are required to provide extensive evidence of their efforts to recruit locally first. Without this, we cannot negotiate an agreement.
For more information about labour agreements, visit the department’s website or email the specialist team for your industry.
Resources sector employers: email@example.com
On-hire employers: firstname.lastname@example.org
Meat processing employers: email@example.com
All other industries and employers: firstname.lastname@example.org
By any measure the size of our skilled migration program is impressive. Last year almost 130 000 skilled visa holders settled in Australia—accounting for more than 60 per cent of all permanent places. Taking a longer term view, almost one million skilled visas have been issued in the past decade.
In a country of only 22 million, numbers of this scale have wide-ranging impacts. Part of our remit is to look beyond these facts and figures to examine how well new migrants are settling into our society. One way we do this is through the Continuous Survey of Australia’s Migrants (CSAM), a survey the department commissions to report on the labour market integration of recently arrived migrants.
See: CSAM Fact Sheet
The good news is that latest findings from this survey are positive, indicating skilled migrants outperform the typical Australian.
For instance, at the six month stage, unemployment among skilled migrants sits at about five per cent, a figure on par with the national average. Given the dual challenges of competing for work in an unfamiliar labour market and adjusting to a new society, this is not a bad result.
An additional six months in Australia sees further improvement. Unemployment among the skilled cohort falls to about two per cent, the proportion in skilled work increases from 68 per cent to 73 per cent and average earnings increase by $4000per year.
Employment outcomes of skilled migrants and general population, six and 12 months after arrival/grant of visa
Moving from the general to the more specific, the CSAM also reveals three tiers of performance among different categories of skilled migrants.
In this category are onshore skilled independents, who are former international students who were accepted as skilled migrants at the end of their studies. Their relative youth makes them less competitive against older more experienced workers for well paying, highly skilled jobs. As a result many are either entering the professional labour market in entry level positions or are taking on less skilled work until something better comes along.
Those sponsored for skilled migration by state governments or family members fall into this group. As they are generally older and more experienced than onshore skilled independents they are more likely to be found in skilled work and earn $8000 more per year on average.
Given that their visa conditions require sponsorship in a full-time skilled job, it is reassuring, but hardly surprising that employer sponsored migrants appear in this category. Also featuring in this elite group are offshore independents. Their appearance is a pay-off for their qualifications, more extensive work experience, and the fact they don’t get any concessions in the General Skilled Migration points test, unlike state and family sponsored. These outcomes clearly support recent skilled migration reforms which gave emphasis to employer sponsored categories and highly skilled independent skilled migrants with workforce experience.
Employment outcomes by skill category at 12 months
Never let it rest…
While the CSAM provides evidence that support recent skilled migration reforms, it does reveal a diversity of employment outcomes. In a wider context the needs of the Australian labour market are continually changing and the global competition for skills is increasing. For these reasons there is an ongoing need to make continued use of this survey.
Until your good is better, and your better is your best
This will ensure that our skilled migration program and the range of policy tools such as the points test, the skilledoccupation List and SkillSelect which help in deciding its size and composition are delivering the workers Australia needs.
See:CSAM Cohorts 1 to 5 Report
Young adults from Uruguay and Australia are now able to enjoy the best of what each country has to offer thanks to a new work and holiday visa arrangement between Australia and Uruguay. From April, Australians and Uruguayans can apply for a visa under the program.
Australian and Uruguayan university-educated travellers, aged 18-30, now have the opportunity to spend up to 12 months in each other’s country on an extended holiday, during which they can gain short-term work to help fund their stay.
The work and holiday program is a great way for young adults to experience the lifestyle and culture of other countries. Uruguay joins the growing list of Australia’s work and holiday partner countries, which includes Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey and the USA.
Information on visa eligibility and how to apply is available on the department’s website.
Changes have been made to the Temporary Graduate (subclass 485) visa to introduce new post-study work arrangements for certain graduates of an Australian bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree.
The subclass 485 visa now provides recent graduates with the opportunity to spend more time in Australia following their studies to gain practical work experience to accompany their Australian qualification(s).
Significant changes were made to the subclass 485 on 23 March 2013. Subclass 485 visa applicants must now apply in either the Graduate Work stream or the Post-Study Work stream. Each stream of the subclass 485 visa has its own specific requirements that applicants must satisfy for their application to be successful.
The Graduate Work stream is for international students who have recently graduated with skills and qualifications that relate to an occupation in demand in the Australian labour market, as determined by the Skilled Occupation List.
The Post-Study Work stream is for international students who have recently graduated with a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree from an Australian educational institution, regardless of their field of study. This stream of the subclass 485 is only available to international students who applied for and were granted their first Australian student visa on or after 5 November 2011, which is the day the genuine temporary entrant requirement was introduced in the student visa program.
If you are applying for a subclass 485 visa, you now need to provide evidence with your application of having health insurance to cover your stay in Australia.
More information about the new subclass 485 visa, including information about how to apply, is available on the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s website.