Australia increases immigrant quota to address labor shortage

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 Australian Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, who has detailed that 195,000 people will be able to enter the country each year, 35,000 people more than the figure previously stipulated, as reported by ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’.

“The skills shortage 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 opted for a reform of the immigration system to solve the problem.

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

In this way, the staff capacity will increase by 500 positions over the next nine months, which would allow progress on the nearly 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 find serious difficulties in finding labor after two years without migration, since Australia closed its borders because of the COVID-19 pandemic.