Australian’s Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Evans has released an evaluation of the changes made to the General Skilled Migration (GSM) program in January 2009.
According to the minister, the changes brought 1100 extra nurses to Australia in 2009, as well as 550 new doctors and 2000 new engineers. The changes also caused a decrease in the number of visa grants to cooks, hairdressers and accountants over the course of 2009.
Back in January 2009, at the height of the global financial crisis, the federal government announced priority processing measures for the GSM program that included the introduction of the Critical Skills List (CSL), and a new processing direction that gave top priority to employer sponsored visas and those from applicants who nominated an occupation on the CSL.
The changes led to the steady increase of the number of employer-sponsored visas, which rose from 29% in 2007-08 to 45% in 2008-09. This trend is expected to continue in 2010, with the number expected to reach 54% of total GSM applications.
This analysis comes just days after the announcement of new changes to the GSM program. These new changes include the scrapping of the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL) – already in place – and the revocation of the CSL, to happen at the end of April.
