Reasons for skilled immigrant minimum wage being increased in Australia

Frozen (TSMIT) Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold since 2013 finally increased from 53,900 to 91,000.

Temporary Skilled Migration Australia is currently faced with an extreme labor shortage following the Covid 19 pandemic. This matter is proving to be very problematic for the country as the skilled workers in having a negative impact on the economy, hence to solve this problem the Australian government is looking to get skilled immigrants to make up for the lack of workforce. In an attempt to attract more skilled immigrants the federal government of Australia has received calls to increase the minimum wages that temporary sponsored skilled immigrants can receive.

The successive Coalition governments of Australia had decided not to increase the (TSMIT) over 53,000 since 2013 but with recent events during the Jobs and Skills Summit the (ACTU) Australian Council of Trade Unions took proposals and increased it by 37,000 making the minimum pay skilled immigrants can receive go up to around 91,000. It was also stated by Dr. Joanna Howe, Associate Professor in Law at the University of Adelaide, that the (TSMIT) was long since overdue. However, at the same time, she has also stated on SBS news that simply increasing TSMIT for skilled immigrants is not enough to ensure the protection of these workers in the labor market.

This act of increasing the TSMIT was also approved by the Grattan institute however it proposed that the pay increase for temporary skilled immigrants should be kept at a more conservative minimum of 70,000, with the director of the economic policy program in Grattan institute, Brendan Coates, saying that the proposal put forward by ACTU would make around two-thirds of skilled immigrants already on temporary sponsored visas ineligible for the program.

Mr. Coates stated on SBS news that young people come to Australia as temporary sponsored migrants and then afterward switch to become permanent skilled migrants to earn a better income but if the set wage is too high then businesses risk the chance of failing to attract skilled workers but you could also lose skilled immigrants who could become the foundation for the skilled migration program to earn more money. THE Grattan institute is also pushing for an 85,000 minimum income for the skilled migration program.

In accordance with the information published by the Department of Home Affairs, there were around 51,770 skilled immigrants on temporary sponsored visas in Australia following 30th June.

The Grattan institute has also suggested that Australia’s skilled migration system should open up to any higher-wage workers instead of focusing on a list of occupations with Mr. Coates stating that it will make filling in jobs much easier since the employers would have it much easier to sponsor skilled workers.

The professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Western Australia’s Edith Cowan University, Pi-Shen Seet has also claimed that in order to attract the very best people in their field, Australia needs to make changes to the skilled migration system.

He also stated in SBS news that “You’ve got to look at your competitors and see what they’re doing and learn from them” like “starting next year, Singapore will see a visa whereby you will have to earn around $30,000 a month before you can get on this platinum visa, and the target of this will be the top five power cent of what they call the Employment Pass holders.

“Even places like the UK can give you a fast-track visa if you have a degree from among the top 50 globally ranked universities.

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