15 September 2009

Emigrate to Australia: Government releases statistics

The Australian Government has released the migration program statistics for the year 2008 to 30 June 2009 showing about every two minutes Australia gains another migrant.

Migration to Australia has made Australia's population grow by 1.9 per cent last year, one of the highest rates in the world.

At 30 June 2009, the Australian Migration Program outcome was 171,318 with the magority of permanent migration, 70 per cent, through the skill stream.

The overall migration program can be broken down into; the skilled migration stream  with 114,777 places approved, the family stream with 56,366 places, and the special eligibility stream with 175 places.

Minister for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans recently said that the Australia employer-sponsored visa stream had increased to 14,264 places, or 60 per cent this year, and the regional-sponsored migration scheme is up 74 per cent from a year ago.

The majority of those emigrating to Australia were from the United Kingdom, India and the People’s Republic of China.

To see if you are eligible to emigrate to Australia take the free online skilled assessment.

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 The Australian Visa Bureau is an independent consulting company specialising in helping people with their Australia visa applications.