Australia increases migrant quota to tackle labor shortage

Sep. 2 () –

The Australian government has increased the maximum quota of immigrants the country can receive in an attempt to address the lack of workers that has led to a labor crisis in the Oceanic State.

This has been announced by the Australian Minister of the Interior, Clare O’Neil, who has detailed that 195,000 people will be able to enter the country each year, 35,000 more people than the figure previously stipulated, according to ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’.

“The shortage of skills in our country is real. And this is not a problem that affects only companies and organizations, it is a problem that affects the daily lives of all Australians,” explained O’Neil, who has bet on a reform of the immigration system to solve the problem.

In this sense, the Australian Executive has announced the allocation of more than 23 million euros to the Ministry of Immigration to eliminate the accumulation of pending visa applications that the country has.

In this way, the capacity of the staff will increase by 500 positions during the next nine months, which would allow progress in the almost 900,000 visas pending review, according to data collected by the aforementioned newspaper.

These measures are framed in a context in which the country’s companies are facing serious difficulties in finding labor after two years without migration, since Australia closed its borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic.