Skills Shortage? – The answer is guest workers!
Australian Immigration and Employment
With the issue of skills shortages now widely discussed and regularly in the news, the Federal and State governments have both announced measures aimed at skilling up the workforce.
The Federal government has lifted the number of skilled migrant places and added welders and other blue collar trades to the skills in demand list. The state government has introduced a skills unit to facilitate a new class of visa that the federal government has provided for the states.
While some of these measures are useful and others are certainly well intentioned, the fundamental issue remains the same for the business community – how to get timely access to the skills it needs in order to meet current requirements. In this context, none of the measures announced are of much use.
The skills shortage has been an emerging issue for some time. Since early 2003 businesses including labour brokers have indicated that there was difficulty obtaining skilled staff and that the situation was only likely to worsen.
That certainly turned out to be the case.
But while the skills shortage is heightened by the current cyclical boost in the resources sector, there is a large element of structural shortages occurring not only in WA, but around the country in various industries including the mining sector.
It has also taken some time for the business groups to reflect the dire need of industry in this area. A former colleague of mine in the Chamber had previously written an article stating that major projects do not experience skills shortages, but the post-poning of a couple of recent mining projects suggests that may not be the case.
Not having sufficient numbers of suitably skilled persons is a problem that requires both a short-term and longer term solution.
In the short term, no amount of training or upskilling will provide an experienced and mature worker for any skilled trade. That is why companies need to look outside of Australia’s national borders in order to satisfy the immediate needs. There is no shortage of experienced and skilled workers from offshore that are seeking to work in Australia – even for relatively short periods.
Longer term the government needs to make institutional changes that will address the structural issues through vocational and tertiary education.
However, in the short-term at least, Australia needs guest workers across a whole range of industries.
In the oil and gas sector and in the health sector, the guest worker has been around for decades. It is widely recognised that there is a national and international shortage of registered nurses and in public and private hospitals around the country it is a veritable collage of nationalities with nurses from all parts of the world including the UK, Ireland, Singapore, South Africa.
The oil and gas sector is also familiar with the guest worker. On drilling platforms in the North West of the state and throughout the growing oil and gas sector in Perth and WA, there are large numbers of drillers, engineers and other skilled professionals that hail from the UK, the United States of America, Canada and other countries that have developed an expertise in offshore deep water drilling.
So why should it be any different for other skilled individuals including brick layers, roof tilers, plumbers, electricians, business managers, marketing specialists and many other skilled occupations.
The short answer is that isn’t. However, industry has not typically looked outside of Australia’s boundaries in order to supplement its skill requirements in this area.
Australia already has a functional work permit system that allows skilled guest workers from offshore to work in Australia for a period of up to 4 years, providing they are sponsored by an Australian employer. The technical term for this is the sub class 457 visa.
While there is always room to make this type of visa more flexible and responsive to employers needs, it is a pretty good product for employers to access. The pity is that outside of the oil and gas and the health sectors, employers generally know little about accessing the work permit arrangements or have heard that it is too difficult or dangerous to employ a person from offshore.
However, the government’s response to the skills shortage has missed the mark by canvassing the options for skilled permanent migration rather than making the arrangements for guest workers more flexible.
WA may need 2000 extra welders this month but these workers may be surplus to requirements in six months time. However, under skilled migration, once they have applied for a permanent visa, they relocate to Australia as a skilled welder and may end up driving a taxi because the work has evaporated.
Therein lays the problem. The current waiting period for a skilled visa is 12 months from the time a person makes an application. So if the government starts a campaign today and the first person makes an application next month, it is likely to be the middle of 2006 before that person will arrive in Australia tooled up and ready to work.
The entry of foreign workers needs to be flexible and responsive to the needs of employers. The shortages in the first half of the year may not be the same as those in the second half of the year depending on a range of factors. Some are cyclical and others and structural and government is not good at identifying the difference between the two.
Employers need to look offshore to meet skill shortages and this process should be promoted and facilitated by government. When the demand wanes for particular skills, a number those guest workers in Australia will need to return to their home countries or move on to the next job in another country - hopefully with a few more dollars in their pocket and the experience of working in Australia. Some may be more fortunate and find a pathway to permanent migration in Australia. What we don’t need is a large number of foreign trained welders as Australian taxi drivers.
Dan Engles
Dan is the Managing Director of Australian Immigration an Employment. He was previously the Senior Economist and Manager of Business Visa Services with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WA). He is a member of the Migration Institute of Australia.
