AUS
NZ
UK
CA
USA
IND
Highlights:
- Australian home affairs minister Claire O'Neil announced at a summit on Friday that the country will accept 35,000 more permanent migrant workers in FY23.
- The total number of migrant workers in the country has been lifted from 160,000 to 195,000.
- The country is now preparing to process all the visas as soon as possible in order to accept more migrant workers in the country.
On 2 September 2022, the Australian government announced to rise in the number of migrants from 160,000 to 195,000 from this financial year onwards.
Claire O'Neil, the home affairs minister in Australia, made an announcement at the jobs and skills summit on Friday stating that the country will accept 35,000 more migrants under its permanent migration program.
As a result, the government will focus on accelerating the visa process for migrant workers.
The COVID-19 pandemic led the country to shut down its borders for almost two years. Also, many migrant workers and students had to leave the country.
Meanwhile, the hike in migrant workers number is expected to positively impact the ongoing financial year- FY23 ending on 30 June 2023. In addition to that, the rise in migrant workers in Australia will help the country to achieve its immigration target with an annual limit of 190,000, which the country achieved earlier in 2013 and 2019.
However, as per some media reports, thousands of workers are currently kept outside Australia by a major backlog in the visa process due to the former government's two-year migration stall and lack of resources.
Australian Immigration Minister, Andrew Giles, confirmed at the summit on Friday that the number of backlog visa applications has gone above 900,000 for permanent and temporary visas now.
As a result, Andrew pledged AU$36.1 million to the Labor government to execute its migration target. Andrew said that he would be hiring 500 additional staff in the next nine months to help clear the backlogs.
