Hospitality and tourism were hit hard by worker shortages when borders closed.(ABC News: Roxanne Fitzgerald)
Maria Zia is a vocational educationtrainer for international students in Brisbane and says her business, like many across the country, has been crippled by the halt to immigration during the pandemic.
In March [2020], when we went into lockdown, we stopped receiving students from overseas …we hadto lay off some staff, she said.
I had a class of 60that dropped down to six students.
Because of alack of international students, a lot of further industries got affected, mainly hospitality and tourism.
Maria Zia saysmore needs to be done to speed up the visa application process.(Supplied: Maria Zia)
While borders have reopened andinternational students and workerscan apply for visas to Australia, a backlog of applications has put further delays onwhat can already be a lengthy years-long approval process.
Since they have opened the borders, everything seems smooth, but that's not reality, Ms Zia said.
Ms Zia wants to see the government's visaapproval process sped up because we need skilled workers right now.
It's not going to happen overnight,the labour shortage willtake two to three years to overcome unless we expedite the migration process, she said.
The visa rejection rates are very high. So the government need to assess that as well.
Migrants 'the backbone'ofsmall business economy
The single biggest problem currently faced by small businesses is worker shortages,Alexi Boyd, CEO of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA), said.
It's an extreme situation for small businesses, Ms Boyd told the ABC.
While COSBOA has commended many of thestructural reforms announced in last week's federal budget, Ms Boyd said it lacked immediate measures to address labour shortages.
Migrants are the backbone of the small business economy, Ms Boyd said.
There's a number of industries anda number of our members who have been calling foryears now to have the skilled migration list increased for theirparticular industry.
Alexi Boydsays the budget lacked immediate measures to address labour shortages.(ABC News: John Gunn)
The government has decided to keep the permanent migration cap at 160,000 places for 2022-23but willincrease the proportion of visas dedicated to skilled migrants to about 70 per cent.
The Morrison government's migration program will focus on skilled migration, with a return to a pre-pandemic composition of roughly two-thirds/one-third across the skill and family streams, Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said.
Ms Boyd said there needed to be more investmentinresources for speeding upvisa processingand simplifying the process for hiring a skilled worker from overseas.
We've got people who are in the process of having their visas sorted out;we'd like to see that happen faster. That's something all industries are calling for, she said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said the 2022-23 migration program would focus onaddressing critical skill shortages and the increase in places would help reduce the number of pending applications.
Visa backlog blamed for unchanged intake
The Department of Home Affairs saysthe skilled occupation listwill be updated to align with shifts in the domestic labour market.(AAP: Julian Smith)
There had been calls from industry groupsfor the ceiling on the migrant intake to be lifted to190,000, where it was in2018-19.
Australian Industry GroupCEOInnes Willoxsaid arestored focus on skilled migration was welcome, but it would not be enoughto fill the labour and skill shortages.
Business in particular will be hoping that this number can be raised as quickly as possible, MrWillox said in a statement.
The government has acknowledged the importance of migration to address workforce shortages and jump-start the economy after pandemic border closures.
However, a backlog in visa processing has been blamed for figures remaining at 2020-21 levels.
Gabriela D'Souza, senior economist at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, said the government hada lot of catching up to do.
About 54 per cent of their staff that were usually approving visas were redirected into approving travel exemptions, or reviewing travel exemptions, so that clearly has left a bit of a capability issue, she said.
I think a lot of people kind of assume that we flickthe switch on migration and everything can go back to normal, but in reality people still need visas to enter, and those visas would need to be approved by the department and it's just not happening that quickly.
Gabriela D'Souza says more resources need to be put into visa processing.(ABC News: Kyle Harley)
International students used as a stopgap
The government hasturned to international students and backpackers to help fill the gaps.
It has offered to refund the visa application costs of international students who arrived between January 19 and March 19 this year, and for working holiday-makers who arrive by April 19.
Earlier in the year, the 40-hour-a-fortnight work cap for student visa holders was also lifted in a bid to fill skills shortages.
But some international students say they feelunappreciatedand more should be done to support their long-term prospects —especially given the contribution they are now making to the workforce.
Ms Boyd said it was to the benefit of small businesses to have more pathways to citizenship in place.
Migrants are the ones who are ready and willing to step up to start up their own businesses ... they bring with thema certain set of skills, she said.
Wouldn't it be great if we could increase their pathway to citizenship to enable that to happen more easily?
It gives surety,it allows people to come here with a certain set of skills that small businesses really need or can't manage in the Australian context.
Shadow Home Affairs MinisterKristina Keneally said she was concerned that Australia was becoming a country where would-be immigrants were locked in temporariness.
It used to be the case in Australia, that people who came here on a temporary basis had pathways to permanency, she said.
Those pathways have narrowed, it has become harder and harder for people to become permanent residents and citizens of Australia.
It's creating a class of people who are permanently temporary, and keeping them in a limbo is a profoundly un-Australian approach to migration.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-06/skilled-migration-worker-shortage-budget-economy/100952684
