Adding to these concerns is an\u00a0expected 85% fall in net overseas migration in 2020-21<\/a>\u00a0from 2018-19 levels because of COVID-related border closures.<\/p>\n The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA<\/a>) has stressed the urgency of increased \u2014 and more flexible \u2014 temporary and permanent migration, as global competition for skills and talent intensifies in the post-pandemic recovery. Australia also risks losing talented individuals to more attractive destinations.<\/p>\n Federal Immigration Minister Alex Hawke is more optimistic. He\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0the pandemic hasn\u2019t harmed Australia\u2019s reputation as a migrant destination. At a\u00a0CEDA livestream discussion<\/a>\u00a0this week, Hawke said migration would be crucial for Australia\u2019s recovery from the pandemic.<\/p>\n What is being overlooked in this debate is that, as a recent\u00a0Productivity Commission report<\/a>\u00a0notes, Australia might not really have a skills shortage. Rather, the problem is a skills mismatch.<\/p>\n Australia typically relies on immigration for almost\u00a0two-thirds of its population growth<\/a>, and skilled migrants are an important source of talent.<\/p>\n COVID-related closures<\/a>\u00a0of national and state borders added to the problems of industry sectors that rely on temporary and permanent migrants to overcome skills shortages. Many have had trouble finding workers (e.g. fruit-picking) or will have trouble as the economy recovers (e.g. hospitality, digital and data opportunities).<\/p>\n CEDA recently launched\u00a0a report<\/a>\u00a0calling for an increase in permanent skilled migration. This report and a\u00a02019 CEDA report<\/a>\u00a0aim to show recent waves of migrants have not reduced wages or jobs of Australian-born workers.<\/p>\n CEDA\u2019s latest report calls on the federal government to:<\/p>\n CEDA describes the Global Talent Scheme (GTS<\/a>) as \u201cvery restrictive\u201d.<\/p>\n Minister Hawke acknowledged post-COVID Australia\u2019s migration policies have to be more flexible and responsive. He pointed to the increased GTS intake of 15,000 spots in 2020-21, a tripling of last year\u2019s allocation.<\/p>\n Yet, the shape and make-up of the migration program remain unclear. Questions during the CEDA\u2019s discussion elicited few new details.<\/p>\n According to the Productivity Commission, the way to modernise and grow the economy is via the\u00a0three Ps: population, participation and productivity<\/a>.<\/p>\n As well as the population impacts of migration, CEDA claims to be offering solutions for both participation \u2014 as skilled migrants have \u201clower unemployment rates and higher labour-force participation rates\u201d \u2014 and productivity, as skilled migrants are younger and contribute to human capital accumulation.<\/p>\n In practice, increased migration works by growing the population, increasing numbers of taxpayers and producing so-called spillover effects in housing, retail and domestic tourism.<\/p>\n CEDA cites an\u00a0Australian National University study<\/a>\u00a0that found migrants account for 7% of the average rate of labour productivity growth between 1994\u201395 and 2007\u201308. However, the Productivity Commission reports\u00a0productivity has slowed<\/a>\u00a0since the mid-2000s despite high migration.<\/p>\n Evidence<\/a>\u00a0indicates employers are not nurturing talent from migration to its full potential. Nearly one in four permanent skilled migrants work in a job beneath their skill level. Research also highlights the need to tackle the disconnect between identified skills shortages and the\u00a0unwillingness of employers to employ new migrants<\/a>.<\/p>\n The solutions CEDA proposes are largely quick fixes and echo previous recommendations from CEDA and employer groups like\u00a0the Australian Chamber of Commerce<\/a>. These are stop-gap government measures to help employers fill shortfalls, including a\u00a050% wage subsidy<\/a>\u00a0for apprentices or trainees and\u00a0tailored quarantine arrangements for seasonal workers<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the systemic problem of skills matching, leading to underemployment and unemployment, has been neglected.<\/p>\n This problem is not unique to Australia. Migrants do essential work in many countries.\u00a0Research<\/a>\u00a0has found many countries have designated these migrants \u2014 including those typically considered \u201clow-skilled\u201d such as crop pickers, care assistants and hospital cleaners \u2014 as \u201ckey\u201d or \u201cessential\u201d workers whose supply needs to be protected and even expanded during the health emergency.<\/p>\n In Australia, some analysts have pointed to the skills shortage as\u00a0a policy ruse<\/a>\u00a0to distract attention from the lack of infrastructure investment to cope with rapid population growth, as well as employers wishing to restrict wages growth.<\/p>\n One in four unemployed Australians are graduates<\/a>. But Australian employers\u00a0might not want to employ and train them<\/a>\u00a0if they can get similarly skilled employees from overseas who are willing to work for lower pay.<\/p>\n The problem is worse among international graduates and students \u2014\u00a060% of the latter lost their jobs during the pandemic<\/a>. Yet, they studied in universities and through VET providers that were supposedly providing them with the skills Australian employers need.<\/p>\n The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has recognised the need to improve skills matching and development. It has\u00a0called for<\/a>\u00a0a more flexible vocational education and training (VET) system that emphasises life-long learning with innovations like micro-apprenticeships. This allows for employees and apprentices to be rapidly trained and regularly upskilled in response to technology and market changes.<\/p>\n This is similar to\u00a0micro-credentials<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 qualifications based on smaller blocks of learning. These can formalise soft and hard skills attained at work, such as teamwork, critical thinking and problem solving. They can also help fill skill gaps such as working with big data.<\/p>\n There are other gaps in the CEDA proposals. For example, when the federal government announced its\u00a0Modern Manufacturing Strategy<\/a>\u00a0in October 2020, it recognised that not enough manufacturers have experience in scaling up in areas that provide good returns. Despite a brief mention of data scientists in regard to skilled occupation lists not being updated since 2013, the CEDA report largely focuses on traditional industries.<\/p>\n Our\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0shows Australia needs to develop new skills in disruptive technologies to capitalise on the opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.<\/p>\n The pandemic has simply added to the urgency of increased collaboration between the higher education and VET sectors, employer organisations, industry and government to deliver more targeted and flexible skills development programs. This article is republished from<\/em>\u00a0The Conversation<\/a>\u00a0under a Creative Commons license. Read the\u00a0original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by PI-SHEN SEET & JANICE JONES Posted April 22, 2021 Prime Minister Scott Morrison has highlighted the\u00a0workforce skills shortage\u00a0as the \u201csingle biggest challenge facing the Australian economy\u201d in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0Employer surveys\u00a0also show it\u2019s a top concern. Adding to these concerns is an\u00a0expected 85% fall in net overseas migration in 2020-21\u00a0from 2018-19…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":5238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/5238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elitestaffing.com.au\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why migration matters now<\/h2>\n
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What are the issues with this approach?<\/h2>\n
How to fix these problems<\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/159207\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\")
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