There are almost two million temporary migrants in Australia. Migration remains central to Australia’s economic prosperity and delivers benefits – permanent and temporary – for the broader community. Yet concerns around migration levels have again become a hot topic.

CEDA’s report examines the facts around temporary migration, its importance to business and the economic benefits it delivers to Australians. While less often discussed than permanent migration, it is a significant and important part of Australia’s migration system.

CEDA’s analysis shows that contrary to some concerns, recent waves of migrants have not had an adverse impact on the wages or jobs of local workers.

Australia’s temporary skilled migration scheme has faced significant scrutiny and has been subject to constant change and review. This creates significant uncertainty, undermining the benefits of this important program to business and the wider economy. Reflecting this, CEDA’s recommendations in this report focus on improving the temporary skilled migration process in four key areas:

• Improving the process of identifying eligible occupations for temporary skilled migration through publication of data and methods, and better classification of occupations.
• Embedding stability of the scheme through more structured and independent evaluation at set intervals.
• Realising administrative efficiencies, including for intracompany transfers of employees and labour market testing.
• Aligning the use of the Skilling Australians Fund Levy to identified areas of emerging skills shortages, to ensure training initiatives alleviate skill shortages driving skilled migration.

Australia will continue to need temporary skilled migration to fill skill shortages as labour demands change and industries continue to evolve.