Australia’s Department of Home Affairs has announced that the Skills in Demand (SID) Visa with three streams (based on wages earned and in some instances also occupation) will replace the existing Temporary Skills Shortage Visa from December 7. These changes which were to be introduced via a Bill, are now being ushered in through amendments in migration regulations.
SID Visa has three streams, the Specialist Skills Pathway, the Core Skills Pathway (the bulk of foreign workers, with earnings between Australian Dollars (AUD) 70,000 to AUD 135.000 are expected to fall in this stream) and the Essential Skills pathway. The Department of Home Affairs has also released the new core skills occupation list that will apply to the Core Skills Pathway of the SID visa. This list contains 456 occupations including those in health, education, construction, agriculture, technology — from cook, dog trainer, horse trainer, electrician, hairdresser, carpenter, bricklayer, to medical professionals and software engineers all are included.
According to immigration experts, Indians which aspire to migrate to Australia are unlikely to be adversely impacted with the roll out of the core skills occupation list. A significant number of Indian immigrants are in the tech sector and occupations like software engineer, software tester, cyber security engineer, software programmer and many others are included in the list. However, a notable exclusion appears to be that of market research analysts.
Further, the core skills occupation list applies only to the Core Skills pathway. Occupations not on this list can still be sponsored under the Specialist Skills Pathway where the earning requirement is above AUD 135,000.
Australia’s Department of Home Affairs states that the new core skills occupation list, carved out after labour market analysis and stakeholder consultants, fulfils the government’s commitment to replace complex, out of date and inflexible occupation lists in our temporary skilled visa program. The list will also apply to the direct entry stream of the permanent employer nomination scheme, it adds. The department is likely to continue with more announcements relating to the SID visa in the coming days.