Migrants to kickstart economy, proclaimed the headline in yesterday’s edition of The Australian. Being a migrant myself, I quickly read the news article to learn more about what the headline meant. It turned out the Immigration Minister is pushing for a year-long increase in the allocated places that would be given to possible migrants to help in the skills shortages in the country. PM John Howard is said to be backing the plan and if it pushes through, there would be 20,000 more places for skilled workers during 2005-06, particularly for doctors, mechanics, boilermakers, hairdressers, pharmacists and accountants.
Migration experts said there’s a need to supplement the labour market with fresh blood, citing that businesses here are in dire need of skilled employees that the locals cannot meet. The warning is underscored by the headline in today’s edition of the same newspaper citing the abandonment of a plan to reopen one of the country’s largest gold mines due to the difficulty of finding fitters, electricians and truck drivers. The scrapped project would have produced 140,000 ounces of gold and generated in excess of $80 million yearly. Stories like these are enough to convince some people that indeed, there is a skills shortage and perhaps the best thing to do is to import these skills from abroad. That’s good news for new migrants, right? Perhaps, but perhaps not entirely.
As with most issues affecting the country, there are those who also say that migration as a solution to this problem is a band-aid solution at best and may even be counter-productive. A segment in last night’s Today Tonight’s episode showed mature workers(over 50s) who are willing and able to work in the very same jobs being cited for skills shortages but couldn’t find employment. It’s sad to see that there are potential workers here who can’t get the opportunity to put their skills in use, contribute to society and lead productive lives. The segment didn’t clarify why these workers can’t get the jobs they’re applying for – is it because of their age, incompatibility of skills to the jobs or some other factor?
If the Howard government decides to increase the migrant places, I hope they do so after extensive planning and after considering all the other options. It should not be a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that may generate more problems in the future. I think that a good solution is a hybrid of re-training the local workforce and supplementing the current shortage with migrants who could fill the vacancies now. Re-training would give the people already here the opportunity to get the proper skills and give something back to the community (as opposed to being idle and on welfare). Age shouldn’t be a factor either as there are anti-discrimination laws against it. As long as they are willing to learn and able to work, then they should be given an equal opportunity to have a go at it.
The government would also have to consider that the migrants they attract may not exactly fill the vacancies they have in mind. Migration takes time and the jobs they want to fill now may no longer be available once the migrants arrive. Furthermore, some of the jobs available may be in the cities but most may not be. Given a choice, migrants might choose to settle in New South Wales (most popular destination for people landing here) where they may not find the jobs they were trained for and hope to fill. That may translate to two things: (1) Under employment or (2) leaving either to go back to their home countries or move to another foreign land.
As migrants, there are people who’d gladly accept option number one simply because they want to keep staying in the country. They may or may not seek further education or training. Option number 2 may win out if the migrant feels that there’s a better future elsewhere and that staying may not be worth their while. This option wastes money and leads to disappointment. For the migrant, he/she may need to spend money to lodge an application for skilled migration to the country, shoulder the costs of medical exams, plane tickets, everyday living when he/she gets here and if he/she decides to go back, has to shell out the money for the plane ride home amid the disappointment that the migration didn’t work. For the government this would translate to wasted places allocated to skilled migration and administrative costs that went into the migration.
The government would have to consider the need for more infrastructure as well. More people necessitates the need to be able to support them. If it works, this would mean a better economy (what they’re hoping for) because one need filled would create new needs/services that other workers may be able to fill. If it fails could lead to decline with more people to support without the means to do so. Either way, the government would have to think this through thoroughly.
