Changes to Australian visa system mean IT professionals are better off

The Australian Immigration Minister, Senator Chris Evans, recently announced the new Skilled Occupation List (SOL) that identifies the key occupations needed by the country. In order to qualify for skilled migration to Australia from 1 July, 2010, migrants must nominate an occupation from the new SOL.

“We intend to fundamentally change the way we target skilled migrants to restore integrity to the skilled migration program,” Senator Evans said.
Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) chairman, Ian Birks, said instead of basing an applicant’s skills on 14 specific computer occupations, the new list has job titles that are more generic.

Job titles include developers, programmers, software engineers, business and systems analysts.

“The key difference is previously they were being very specific, where they tended to say things like SAP specialist, whereas now they’re more generic,” he said.

“It provides increased flexibility because it allows people looking to migrate and our members who are looking to hire people, to see them as more general skills-based rather than specific categories.”

“It’s not a major change in terms of the numbers of people that will come through the industry, but it means that we have an ability to characterise what we need in general terms.”

Australian Computer Society (ACS) CEO, Bruce Lakin said the changes would encourage migration from international workers.

 “It’s a more efficient approach, they’re not looking at the immediate shortages today but what we require over the next three years,” Lakin said.
“Strategically, that’s a good thing.”

 

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The Australian Visa Bureau is an independent consulting company specialising in helping people lodge their Australian Visa applications with the Australian Embassy.