The recession hit Australia have noticed a boost in immigration and its benefits on the retail and housing sectors. According to the statistics, the number of immigrants have gradually increased since past and it has boosted some of the sectors of economy. Jane Turner, ASB economist, said the turn around in net migration in the past few months as departures have fallen dramatically, particularly to Australia had been swift and net migration was likely to continue to rise. “The boost to the population will help provide some timely support for the retail and housing activity, helping to curb the recent fall in demand,†said Ms. Jane Turner.
On the other hand New Zealand’s strategist Bernard Doyle said that the key driver behind the 2003-07 economic upswings was the net immigration happening in Australia. “Accordingly, the longer net migration persists around these levels, the more optimistic we become on prospects for the domestic economy.” During the next three years Australia and New Zealand would sustain a good inflow of immigration to its locations. As it is seen in histories also, a flow of outside immigration has benefited many countries in enormous ways. The same concept is believed to be opted for net immigration these days which is why some countries have developed extremely.
A recent report highlighted that economists warned that New Zealand will suffer because of the slash of immigration rate due to recession. New Zealand reportedly slowed down the immigration intake because of the rising unemployment rates as it has risen at its high in past 6 years with a percentile of 5. As it is known that New Zealand is dealing with the impacts of recession and its chances of recovering appear small and as expected by the International Monetary Fund it is further going to slump by 2% this year.
The hard hit industry by recession in New Zealand is especially that of construction and however, the Trade Unionists argued that the government should reduce the skilled immigration rate to protect their work. Although the economists think of it as a short sighted view as great economists like Phillippe Legrain from Britain said, “New Zealand needs to prepare now for economic recovery by keeping immigration strong. He says that new immigrants are a lifeline to the world economy and a “launch pad” for recoveryâ€. “Different people, with different experience, different ideas, different perspectives sparking off each other can create new solutions to problems, can help to innovate and it is precisely in a recession that businesses need to innovate in order to be prepared for the recovery,†he said.
The New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key however favours Skilled Immigration and resists the calls to scale back immigration as he is of the view that skilled foreign workers would help the country to emerge strong and recover from the impacts of recession. The Skilled Immigrants in New Zealand usually comes from Britain, China and Australia with some proportion of them coming from India.More Detail on NewZealand Immigration.
The skilled immigration programme for Australia is further under scrutiny as Australian immigration authorities are going to further slash the proposed number of skilled immigrants entering Australia per year. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that with the release of next federal budget, there could be a further proposed cut of about 7000 places, as the Australian government is forecasting the continuing unemployment rate to rise. The slash of 7000 places would impact on the reduction of Australian Skilled Immigration rate by 108,000 places which is 20% decrease in the immigration programme as noted upto March 2009 this year. The impact of recession has been taking its toll on various countries while Australia still remains vigilant. As warned by the Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, that inspite of the recent positive results of the Australian economy like- fall in the unemployment rate, strong retail trade figures and rising commodity prices, the Australian economy is still fragile of recession impacts.
The Immigration Senator Chris Evans would be soon releasing new details for the Australian Skilled Immigration programme, as planned for the new financial year 2009-2010. The new plan would totally focus on the economic need of recovering Australia from the economic slump which is why there would be a reflective impact on the rate of immigration to Australia. As it is widely known that in the past when the Australian economy was booming at a fast pace, the Australian immigration programme also recorded an extraordinary level of migration (133,000 places on skilled immigration). However this year, because of the recession, Senator Evans would be refining the same so that only exceptional skilled immigrants whose skills are deeply needed would benefit from the programme. Nonetheless it is predicted that inspite of the slash in the annual rate of immigration, there would be about 108,000 places vacant for skilled immigrants to Australia.
Many Universities in the United Kingdom are pestering the government to help them get more and more foreign students to study in their campuses by easing the student visa rules. It is surprising to notice that the UK universities are competing with other countries like Australia etc, to enrol more and more foreign students. The ‘Universities UK’ has termed the overseas students as a ‘major export industry’. Drummond Bone, president of Universities UK quoted, “It is worth more than food and drink, tobacco, insurance, ships and aircraftâ€. Because of this the government would be lobbied to promote higher education in UK to recruit a potential student market instead of promoting restrict recruitment of students in the UK. UK has been a very popular destination among students for higher education. However the surveys conducted by OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) indicated that the proportion of businesses from students was slipping from UK universities resulting in comparatively lesser number of students choosing UK as their study destination.
Professor Bone was quoted saying, “”For British universities to remain amongst the foremost destinations for international higher education, we urge the government to support our efforts, and avoid putting any unnecessary barriers in our way. We have already raised our concerns about recent changes to the visa regime for international students as well as further measures proposed by government, including plans to abolish the right of appeal for international students who are refused visas, that risk making us less attractive as a study destination.”
The new study destination now days is Australia, as Australia attracts increasing number of students because of the opportunities it provides to its students after they finish their studies. Australia has the highest number of foreign students to its share than any other country. With time it is estimated that the Education business would grow substantially which could give an estimated business of about 20 Billion British Pounds by 2020. UK Universities are also planning to grow their universities by opening their campuses abroad. The ‘study abroad’ programmes help educational institutions benefit by getting a cultural exposure, diversity and moreover it helps their economy
As many foreign students are learning about the opportunity of easy permanent residence in Australia after doing a professional cookery course- while at the same time campaigners protesting against the sudden increase of immigrants in Australia have demanded to remove the ‘Cookery’ course from the famous Skilled Occupation List. It is felt that many foreign students are opting for easier ways to get a direct immigration to Australia like choosing an easy course which falls in its skilled occupation lists. The Monash University’s Centre for population and Urban Research reported that the foreign students studying in Australia after getting enrolled in cooking courses have increased this year by 8 times compared with that in 2004. The present situation is termed as “The Cooking Immigration Nexus†as per the report. The report states that the label of Permanent Residence is quite appealing to people coming from developing countries which are providing its residents comparatively very low wage and living standards than in Australia. The pursuit of a better life in Australia makes the Indian students or young workers opt for such courses in Australia in order to gain an easy permanent residency to avoid the assessment test procedures.
The people who are willing to go for this kind of a deal are willing to do anything to achieve that which sometimes also results in exploitation of the employee by the employer. As it has been noted that most of the students going to Australia for studying ‘Cookery’ only want to work in their professions till the time they are granted with the Permanent Resident status. After they acquire the status of a PR, many of them do not continue working as the same. This again results in shortage of skilled labour for Australia and rise in unemployment. It is observed that with time due to the increase number of immigrant flow to Australia and the fact that the individuals who are going under their opted professions would not work in the same profession in Australia would make the immigration authorities to perform certain checks on its immigrants to keep a track of the trade level workers.
To protect aspiring immigrants from fraud and mischievous immigration consultants all around the world, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) launched an awareness campaign to warn the aspiring immigrants from deception. As it is widely known that the immigration trend to rich countries in search of better lifestyles have allured people from developing, as well as developed nations to invest their money in these companies in the form of immigration procedural fees. The deceitful consultants seem to take benefit of this fact and empty the customer’s pockets in a hope to make them reach to the promised countries. The CIC website has put a new online survey method with the help of which people would be able to give their inputs. This would help Canadian government to keep a check and provide feedback on immigration fraud and wrong doings by these companies. This would make authorities gauge the problem better.
The States Immigration Minister Jason Kenney stated that that Canadian government would enforce strict actions if immigration fraud is proven and the authorities would take preventive measures against such consultants across Canada or around the globe to protect the immigrants from getting harmed by their false propagandas. The online survey would be open until 17th of May and would be voluntary and confidential with a sole goal to gather information for preventing Immigration frauds across Canada. The preventive measures taken by the CIC should be appreciated by world over registered immigration consultants as immigration fraud from unregistered companies take place at a very large rate and it also results in giving the business a bad name. The desire to immigrate to rich nations in pursuit of a better life leaves many people in difficulty when they are cheated by such consultants. There is a need to keep a check by the people and by authorities on this kind of fraudulent work around the world.
Inspite of the strict laws and immigration restrictions to UK because of recession, terror threats, world problems etc. are giving a hard time to skilled immigrants who are wishing to immigrate abroad. But the new buzzword nowadays is that UK has growing ageing population with relatively low birth rate to balance the work force. Industries in UK like healthcare, hospitality etc would need skilled immigrants with the passage of time. Mr. Alistair Cox, the Head of the UKs largest Recruitment Firm, Hays, said, In sectors such as healthcare, where a doctor requires seven to eight years of university training, governments will have to choose between removing some of these employment restrictions and immigrant restrictions or find another way to deliver these services. The UK National Health Service employs 1.3 million people, of which 50% will retire in the next 15 years. So, the government will be hard-pressed to replace these people.
India has the capacity to outsource foreign immigrants to the UK. While population in the UK would age, India would remain a leading nation to send its skilled immigrants abroad. As it is, Indian professionals are pursuing foreign shores for their future growth and UK remains a favourite list of many Indians. Recently, there has been many changes in the foreign visa policy to the UK, be it a student visa or a skilled worker visa but the enthusiasm never failed the applicants who wish to seek an immigration abroad. Inspite of many immigrants settling in UK every year, it is estimated that with time, UK would need more skilled immigrants in many sectors. Applicants, who are qualified enough with good English language command and relevant work experiences are most likely to find jobs in the UK.
Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism announced that in 2009, Canada will be welcoming 240,000 to 265,000 new permanent residents. The minister said, The numbers reflect a continued commitment to an immigration programme that balances Canada’s economic, humanitarian and family reunification goalsâ€. Whereas, it is noticed that many a countries are drawing attention in taking fewer immigrants every year. Further elaborating the Minister said “While countries such as U.K. and Australia are talking about taking fewer immigrants, our planned numbers for 2009 are on par with last year and are among the highest for the country over the past 15 yearsâ€.
The plan mentions that upto 156,600 immigrants will be admitted to the economic category, 71,000 in the family category and 37,400 in the humanitarian category. Infact it is a good and lucrative offer for Indians seeking to settle abroad since they have an open option when most of the countries are nearly closing down and being choosy about their intake.
Canada provides programmes and services to support newcomers in a variety of ways by providing language training, so that they have the language skills to function in Canada. Canadian govt helps by various ways- by providing information they need to better understand life in Canada, by providing assistance to find employment which matches their skills and education.
It hasn’t been very long when Australia was basking in America’s glory for all the economic boom, but, due to global meltdown, Australia not only received a set back but recession has made her more careful about immigration policies. Luckily, things have not come to a halt in Australia, but, only the country lost a potential and richest customer. Things did have slowed down and there is a possibility of going in recession but Australia still needs many skilled workers.
In times like these a country to save its ruin is very careful about letting people enter its soil. Australia not only received a set back but is going to be very cautious about picking up immigrant skilled workers. It’s a big challenge for the country. It’s all about defining and supplying the right mix of skills where they are the most needed.
It is good news for Indians who wish to immigrate to Australia on skilled workers category that according to a recent skill index survey- around one hundred and ten thousand skilled jobs couldn’t be filled at the end of 2008. Some of the professions with shortage include chefs, health sector, trade etc.
So it has been observed that even though Australia cut its immigration intake for the first time in 8 years, this won’t affect the ‘needed’ skilled worker category. Australia will still remain a land of opportunities for skilled professionals and trades people.
It is quite surprising to notice how students are withdrawing their attention from top universities of UK, USA, Canada etc due to recession and rather choosing New Zealand (NZ) universities over them. The ‘hot’ selling destination for them is now NZ which is still immune to the impact of the economic slump. The flow of maximum students is now going towards NZ as a study destination. The education in NZ is not only quite affordable but the country provides a clean and safe environment to live in. The benefits of studying in NZ are many. After the completion of one’s study an easy permanent residency could be obtained easily. The academic institutions of NZ are world class and are recognised globally. The fees are quite reasonable even if you wish to choose a highly reputed university in NZ.
The student experience is enhanced by the high standards of living and the scenic views & landscapes in and around New Zealand. The visa system is comparatively liberal and it allows students to work while they are pursuing their degrees in NZ. The points based system for obtaining a permanent residency allows students to be eligible for a PR in NZ. The points based assessment for a PR has different parameters for valuation which are based on different facts like qualification of the applicant, age, skills and proficiency in English language etc.
The numbers of student visas issued this year are more than last year. As per education New Zealand upto February 01, 2009, immigration NZ issued 67,530 student visas which are 4200 more than last year. On top of being an exotic destination with highly reputed universities from around the world the graduate work permit offered by the country is an ‘icing on the cake’. The 12 month permit or the graduate work permit is issued to students who complete their qualifications successfully in NZ. This allows them to qualify for the New Zealand skilled migrant category for immigration which is generally assessed using points based system. An applicant also does not require a job offer for this unlike other states and it provides a pathway to permanent residency as well.
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