I just hope they don't overdo this. Many of these professions have had a labour shortage for a long time. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing that people were getting paid a lot, unless you were the one paying them.

Boom gate lowered to protect jobs

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/5392357/boom-gate-lowered-protect-jobs/

In a bid to protect Australian jobs, the number of skilled migrants allowed into Australia is being slashed.

In a sign of the times, the permanent skilled migration program is being slashed by 18,000 over the next three months, with no foreign bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters or electricians allowed in for the foreseeable future.

And the migrant worker program is likely to be cut back further in the May Budget.

In a bid to stem local job losses, Immigration Minister Chris Evans says there will be a massive slowing in the permanent migration program.

"We're going to cut it from 133,500 to 115,000, so that's about a 14 per cent cut," he said.

Senator Evans took hairdressers and cooks off Australia's critical skills shortage list last Christmas .

Now he is removing a swag of other occupations, which essentially amounts to all the building and manufacturing trades.

"That's where we've seen a drop off in demand, some major redundancies," he said.

"We don't want people coming in who are going to compete with Australians for limited jobs."

Senator Evans says he sees little chance of a change to policy next year.

"What we'll look to do is run a smaller program and keep the capacity to make sure we can bring in any labour we might need as the year develops," he said.

But the Minister says he does not think there will be any need to take other occupations off the critical skills list.

"What's left on the list is pretty well confined to quite specialist areas that have been in short supply for many years, in the health, engineering and IT areas," he said.

"I doubt there are going to be many changes in that regard. We're down to a very short list now.

Employers can still apply to bring in foreign trades people by sponsoring them or using the special 457 visa category for temporary migrant workers but they must prove they cannot source labour locally.

That is becoming increasingly difficult to justify as the economy contracts.

The ACTU says it is prudent to make the cuts when unemployment is on the rise.

But the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Peter Anderson says even in tough times there will still be trades skills shortages.

"We would have preferred a status quo position," he said.

"The risk is that you don't want migration policy to move in high peaks and low troughs because that does create dislocation through the economy.

"Often in this area it is far better to allow the labour market to operate in a more natural way."

The Master Builders Association says the cut to the migration program is warranted.

Chief executive Wil Harnisch says unemployment in building and construction is heading up at an alarming rate.

"We're projecting at least a loss of 50,000 jobs in this industry over the next 12 months and it's likely more to come," he said.

"The Government's building-the-nation and jobs plans and the first homeowner grants schemes certainly will underpin conditions in the building industry but we are still seeing a significant slowdown in building activity. That simply cannot be made up by the Government's stimuli packages."

_Adapted from an AM story by Alexandra Kirk_

DILLIGAF wrote on Mar 16^th, 2009 at 2:44pm:


I agree, but the reduction hasn't gone far enough.  Immigration has to stop altogether.  By the end of Rudd's first term - we would have reached 1,000,000 migrants.  This is far too much for a country short on water and jobs at present.

This 18,000 people out of 350,000 is nothing.  How many of these migrants will be skilled enough to find employment, if Australians are being sacked by the thousands.  Can we afford another million people on unemployment benefits?

When are we going to look after Australians first?

We need more prostitutes and less pimps.

Slashed?
In who's eyes?

Sure rudd may be a bit "too little too late" in this case,
But I give him the big thumbs up on this one overall.

From little things big things grow.

No ON constantly criticised the Howard gov.

You expected the media to ket you know perhaps, like they did this time?  hmmm.

ON has had lots of good ideas and grasped many issues better than the major parties.  After all it was closer to the grassroots.

It's got the issue date on it March 16th.

Its releases regular articles on issues.  Some good some bad but don't expect it to be anything the media will tell you abut.

There is something wrong about that press release. It's like One Nation is stuck in a time warp. They go on and on about a skills shortage, pretending that unemployment is not skyrocketing. That doesn't sound very close to the grass roots to me.

It's all a bit academic now Grendel. They missed the boat.

Do you think other political parties were started by aliens?