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Australia Announces Series of New Immigration Changes to Fill Skill Shortages

The Australian government recently announced a series of immigration changes including a skilled migration program targeting regional Australia, a faster 457 visa process and an increase in the number of humanitarian visas in near future.
The skilled migration program will increase the number of participants up to 125,850 people, with about 16,000 skilled workers to be directed to regional areas under the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme during 2011 – 2012. The increase is a way to help those areas that are facing with skill shortages due to the booming mining industry.
The Australian government will have to spend $5.9 million for the increase in the regional skilled migration program over the next four year.
According to Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, the refugee program will be for those who have been referred to Australia for resettlement by the United Nations High Commissioner for refugee, and then for refugees from three priority regions of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Besides, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that the number of humanitarian visas to be granted will increase by 4,000 under the government's asylum seeker swap with Malaysia. This raises the total amount of humanitarian program to 14,750 visas. Along with 185,000 visas that the government will issue for permanent migration next year, Australia will welcome total 199,750 migrants.
The government also announced that they will speed up applications of the 457 visa schemes under new Enterprise Migration Agreements (EMAs) to allow resource projects to gain access to overseas labour. According to Mr Bowen, the EMAs, which is a custom-designed and project-wide migration scheme tailored to the resources sector, is available for projects with a value of at least $2 billion and having 1,500 employees.
If you are interested in Australian visas, contact Migration Expert for information and advice on which visa is best suited to you. You can also try our visa eligibility assessment to see if you are eligible to apply for a visa to Australia.

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