Immigration Reform: Win-win Situation or Cold Winter Comes?

According to the data of Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia’s population grew by 1.6% over the previous year at the end of June 2018. Among them, the contribution rate of natural increase and NOM growth was 39.4% and 60.6% respectively. Australia’s population is growing strongly, and immigrant population plays a very important role in population growth.

However, from April 2017, the Australian federal government canceled the Temporary Work (Skilled) visa to the latest federal budget. In the past two years, Australia’s immigration policy was undergoing a series of adjustments, and its reform direction and policy focus points have gradually turned to restrict immigration. In this series of immigration policy reform, there are three aspects that attract people’s attention:

1.reducing the migration ceiling to 160,000 places (usually have about 190,000 places).

2.introducing two new skilled regional provisional visas in November,2019.

3.single applicants will award 10 additional points in the skilled migration points test.

Why reducing the migration ceiling?

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison believes that the public infrastructure in Sydney and Melbourne is no longer able to accommodate new residents. To balance the development of these big cities with other Australian cities, the government is determined to reduce the population or divert the migrants to regional areas and small towns.

Why encouraging new immigrants staying in regional areas?

The population explosion in Sydney and Melbourne makes congestion, pollution, overcrowding, and affecting local people’s quality of life. It is not easy for them to find jobs and better lives. So, the government plans to use existing mechanisms to encourage and guide new migrants to areas where need larger labor input and meet employment needs in regional areas.

Why single will have 10 additional points?

The new skilled migration points test aimed at stopping fake spouses or unskilled spouses staying in Australia. These people may take up many immigrant visa places, and they are not the new immigrants Australia want. This new policy will bring more fresh and capable new immigrants to the labor market of Australia.

Those new migration policies not only surprised the migrants or applicants who want to migrate to Australia, but also shocked the Chinese students and Immigration agencies, and after those new policies introduced, there is too much information about the future of Australia immigration. For Chinese students and agencies, how will the changing immigration situation affect their lives?

If you are a student:

For students who will graduate or have a strong interest in immigration, the recent reforming immigration policies make them feel confused and don’t know what to do. Compared with the previously difficult policy, the current immigration prospect is more uncertain.

For Chinese students, staying in Australia gives them the opportunity to enjoy the excellent social welfare provided by the Australian government and find a job that is less stressful than Chinese employment. According to the Report on the Employability Survey of Chinese Returnees 2019，nearly 30% returnees’ annual salary is less than $20000. But the average salary of Australian is $82436 a year, and the table below also shows, the lowest average salary (Tasmania $71,718) is much higher than those Chinese returnees’.

Under the pressure of living cost and life, salary is a comprehensive factor that international students will consider when finding employment. And they also take the enterprise culture and some other factors into consideration. The data in the Employability Survey shows that quite a few numbers of returnees can find their dream job within one month when they go back to their country. The Survey also pointed out that 70% of employers attach great importance to recruiting graduates returned from overseas.

Taking these two factors into consideration, many overseas students have a confused attitude towards staying in Australia in the future. They are not sure. Should they stay in Australia or choose to start their own business back home when the prospect of immigration in Australia is not clear?

About this, Xinjing Liang, Australian High Court solicitor, works in Lin Tang& Co. Lawyers said “maybe students should not only care about the negative sides, but there are also some advantages of immigration that they didn’t notice. For example, in order to attract international students and new immigrants, south Australia government is bound to increase many opportunities, including introducing some more favorable working conditions, publishing easier policy to help international students settle in Australia after graduation.”

Suggestions for overseas students:

• If you are pretty sure staying in Australia, don’t hesitate to do it as soon as possible because the Australia government has tightened policy on migrants, the future policies may be even worse.

• If you are not sure about migration, you need clearly seeing the situation of graduates returning home. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the internship opportunities in both your home country and Australia. Don’t miss any opportunities！

• Keep your eyes open and have a clear judgment when choosing an immigration agency. You need to find an agency with qualifications and expertise, don’t blindly trust the advice of a single institution. Learn to get immigration information from multiple platforms. There are also many immigration news and official documents available on the Internet.

If you are the Immigration agency:

Since the Australia government consider sending immigrants to regional areas for 5 years in August 2018, many Chinese immigration agencies are starting to shift their business, because whatever the policy is, there will have some extra time to practice new policies, it means agencies still have time to plan.

• From recommending popular immigrant majors (e.g., accounting, engineering, IT) to recommending non-popular majors (e.g., telecommunication, nursing, IT security) *The popular majors here are the points more than 90 in the skilled migration points test.

• Publishing and popularizing articles about regional areas on institutional social networking platforms, such as WeChat public platform and Weibo. And at the same time, they start promoting universities and related immigration majors in regional areas.
• Recommending the English Proficiency Exam, such as Credentialed Community Language (CCL), Pearson Test of English (PTE), etc. Because of the serious migration trending, agencies try to shift the long-term migration process to the short-term English training and examination, so that they can get bonus earned from other English language training institutions.

• Strengthen communication with potential student customers. Chinese immigration agencies will join the welcome Week, mid-term and final examination of the school, attract students’ attention with all kinds of Free Gifts with their WeChat code and some detailed information of the organization, so as to realize the purpose of advertising the company and business.

For these changes of immigration agencies, Liang said, “For a long time, the agency has been promoting various information of the new immigration policy through different social media platforms, it also reflects the impact of Australia’s immigration policy changes on agencies.”

“Even if the immigration policy becomes so harsh, there will still have a growing tendency of immigration.” Liang predicted. Immigration agencies have found opportunities and possibilities for further development, so in the short term, their immigration business will not be too much affected.

If you want to know more details about immigration, you can visit PARLIAMENT of AUSTRALIA or Australia Government Department of Home Affairs.