There are many advocating to urgently fill the gap in skilled work by attracting skilled migrants. The government has heeded this call by temporarily increasing the quotas for skilled migrant visas. In its recent publication, “Strengthening the Engineering Workforce“, Engineers Australia reiterated that the challenge, beyond increasing skilled migration is to ensure they participate in skilled employment after their arrival.
There are many factors that contribute to skilled migrants’ poor conversion from skilled migration to skilled work. Australian employers, for one, expect potential candidates to have local experience particular to their industry. As skilled migrant myself, arriving in Australia in 2014, I found overcoming this obstacle particularly difficult. Ultimately, a placement through a TAFE course was my lucky break into gaining local experience.
On the other hand, there are presently no formal support programs for newly arrived migrants, to the best of my knowledge, to navigate the Australian job market. This makes it difficult for skilled migrants to find appropriate work quickly and efficiently after their arrival. In my experience, once I had arrived in Melbourne, I was desperate to find programs that could help me gain knowledge of Australian work culture and industries. The only support I found were informal ones by getting involved in volunteering work through Engineers Australia and/or Engineers Without Borders. These helped me to better present my skills and knowledge to potential employers.
Failing to match skilled migrants with skilled work may eventually push them away from skilled work. It is not surprising that many decide to pursue less skilled work in the interim to support themselves and their families. As a single man with reasonably good communication skills and support of Melbourne-based friends and acquaintances, I was lucky I could afford to wait longer for a work opportunity suitable to my skills. I acknowledge my privilege in this respect made it possible for me to secure a role as a skilled worker. The realities and experiences of migrants I knew at the time were indeed very different to mine.
In the end, we know we need to help the industry understand that any experience is good experience and give those arriving on our shores the chance to prove their ability. We need to provide pathways to skilled work and ensure we remove as many obstacles as possible for all skilled migrants to have an equal opportunity in the Australian job market. I appreciate that things have changed for the better since 2014. The opportunities identified by Engineers Australia gives me hope that these challenges will not go unnoticed and that the industry is going to play a proactive role in ensuring skilled migrants are supported and find suitable skilled work.
QANAT 