Australian immigration targets reached with total of 190,000 new migrants

The Australian Government’s target of attracting 190,000 new migrants in the latest financial year has been achieved, it has been announced.

The data from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) shows that Australian industry benefited with the majority of the permanent migration visas, some 128,550 places, granted within the skilled stream.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said this equates to nearly 68% of the programme. ‘The skill stream is targeted towards helping fill identified skill shortages in the Australian economy. These results are a major boost to the Australian economy,’ he explained.

Overall in 2013/2014, occupational professionals accounted for more than 63% of visas granted in the skill stream, followed by technicians and trades workers with 22% and managers with 9% of skilled stream visa grants.

More than 60% of skilled migration visas were delivered within the employer-sponsored designation, amounting to 47,450 places, while business innovation and investment took 6,160 places and state and territory government nominated 24,656 visa categories.

The family stream, which prioritised the reunion of partners and children, accounted for 61,112 places, representing about 32% of the migration programme.

Within this visa stream, the partner category accounted for 47,752 places or 78% of the family sector, and the child category delivered 3,850 places. The remaining family stream places were granted within the other family, contributory parent and parent categories accounting for 585, 6,675 and 2,250 places respectively.

‘Delivery of a well-managed migration scheme demonstrates our capacity to carefully structure our programmes to deliver the size and composition required to meet the needs of the Australian economy,’ Morrison said, adding that the purpose of migration is to build the economy, shape society, support the labour market and reunite family.

India was Australia’s largest source country of migrants with 39,026 places, or 23.1% of the total, followed by China with 26,776 places and the United Kingdom with 23,220 places.

However, a breakdown of the figures show that the number of visas granted for India has fallen by 2.6% and for China, the numbers are down 2% compared with the previous financial year. But the number of visas for British people increased by 7%.

Most people moved to New South Wales. The state has 33.7% of new migrants, up from 30.2% in the previous financial year. Victoria saw the second largest number of migrants at 24.4% followed by Western Australia with 17.8%.

Over the past decade, only New South Wales and Victoria recorded decreases in proportion of the total migration programme. New South Wales recorded the largest fall of 4.7% and Victoria was down by 2.8% in 2013/2014.

Western Australia recorded the largest increase over the past decade in the proportion of the migration programme, up 5.8%. South Australia saw an increase of 0.7% and the Northern Territory recorded a threefold increase, rising from 0.5% in 2003/2004 to 1.4% in 2013/2014.

The data also shows how the migration programme size and composition is flexible and has changed over time. It was a smaller programme with mostly family migrants in 1993/1994 to a larger programme with more skilled migrants in 2013/2014.

Planning levels are set by the government each year and the size and composition changes to meet the social and economic needs of Australia.

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