Australia conducts its April Skill Select round during Coronavirus

Amid the Coronavirus pandemic Australia announced its fourth Skill Select round for 2020 that was conducted by the Australia’s Department of Home Affairs. The latest round saw a total of 100 skilled visa invitations issued to immigration candidates. 2050 invitations issued in the last round held in April this year. The latest round has increased the hopes of prospective immigrants who hope that immigration programs of Australia will continue despite COVID-19.

 

Australia has set a target of 16652 invites this year. Out of these 4000 invitations will go to citizens of New Zealand. The invitations were issued under Subclass 189 (Skilled Independent) and Subclass 491 (Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) Visa.

 

The following number of Invitations were issued in the April round:

 

Visa subclass	Number
Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189)	50
Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (subclass 491) – Family-Sponsored	50

 

Invitation process and cut offs:

Applicants with the minimum points score are invited to apply for the relevant visa. For applicants with equal scores, the order of invitation is determined by how early they reached their points score for that visa subclass.

 

The minimum points score for both the Subclass 189 visa and the Subclass 491 visa was 95.

 

The graph below shows the points for clients who received ITAs in this round.

 

Occupation ceiling:

Occupation ceilings are applied to invitations that are issued under the independent skilled regional (provisional) visa category. This means that there will be a limit on the number of EOIs that can be selected under skilled migration from an occupation group.

 

This ensures that the skilled migration program does not cover only a small number of occupations. With an occupation ceiling, if the designated limit is reached for an occupation, then no further invitations will be given for that occupation and other occupations even if they are ranked lower will be issued invitations.

 

The invitations are subject to a pro-rata arrangement to ensure that there are enough invitations to be issued throughout the program year.

 

The Skill Select round conducted in April is an indication that despite the Coronavirus pandemic, the Australian government is keen to continue its Skilled Migration program so that the country has the required workforce for its economic development in the future as well.

 

If you are looking to Study, Work, Visit, Invest or Migrate to Australia, talk to Y-Axis, the World’s No.1 Immigration & Visa Company.