In order to solve the problem of the shortfall of the skilled workers, the Immigration Minister of Australia has already directed the Department of the Home Affairs to speed up the overall processing of the visa applications. The new Immigration Minister of Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant, Services & Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Giles, already announced that they are already mainly focusing on overall clearing of the backlog of visa applications. This has become a primary concern for them.
He also remarked that “the delay in the processing of the visa applications has already been raised for a lot of years by the former Government and community also. Therefore, it has already become a priority for the Government of Australia to process the outstanding visa application. According to the latest Minister, the claim that previous Government didn’t release data on the number of the skilled worker visa applications which had been already submitted.
However, there were 195,000 Skilled Workers available in 2014, which was relatively high if you are comparing with other countries, but this figure reached 96,000 in 2022. There is no doubt in the fact that the total of visa holders of skilled workers has shrunk in Australia. According to the professionals, Employers are continually dealing with the “protracted” processing timeframes for the skilled workers, as per Andrew McKellar, who is CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
He also claims that they also require a significant amount of more important resources to trim down on the long visa processing waits. To make the migration system of the skilled worker more and more accessible and responsible, then they will have to open up the employer-sponsored migration to all the skilled occupations.
According to the professionals, the waiting time for 576 visas in 2018, which is specially designed for the recent engineering graduates who really want to work, live or study in Australia for up to 18 months, has already been increased to 41 months. You will find people such as Gurpreet Kaur, who has completed engineering from Punjab and she has been already waiting for approximately four years; however, she is continually submitting & resubmitting important papers & evidence also while she is unable to talk the directly with any person in the home affairs department regarding the process of her application. According to the professionals, more than 6000 applications are currently available for the grant.
“Waiting for three to four years it’s a really frustrating situation, and I think it’s a moral duty of any government because this is unfair to us. We have planned all our career plans, we are suffering, not only professionally, but it is a mental depression also.”