In May and June 2018, the Department of Jobs and Small Business (DJSB) undertook its six monthly review of the skilled migration occupation lists (SMOLs) to determine which occupations would be included on the lists and therefore open for skilled migration. DJSB commenced its consultation process by holding secretive discussions with vested interests such as industry groups and peak professional bodies. It then applied its points-based scoring system to a selection of labour market parameters for each occupation, and made ‘traffic light’ recommendations about which occupations should be included on, or excluded from, the SMOLs. The general public was invited to make submissions about the recommendations before the consultation process finished later in June.
In October 2017 the DJSB received nearly 70 submissions about its draft methodology for evaluating how occupations should be assessed for inclusion or exclusion from the SMOLs. It ignored all the feedback in these submissions, and proceeded to use the draft methodology in its consultation process in May/June 2018. The draft methodology has major flaws:
On top of this, DJSB makes recommendations about one ‘generic’ version of the Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List, even though five different versions exist in the legislation. The versions of the MLTSSL for employer-nominated visas (in legislative instruments IMMI 18/048 and IMMI 18/049) have a vastly different labour market impact than the version of the MLTSSL for points-tested migrants (in IMMI 18/051). The methodology takes no account of this. The MLTSSL is the only one of the SMOLs on which engineering occupations are included. Not surprisingly, for engineering occupations DJSB recommended that the status quo should be maintained, ie. all 21 engineering occupations should remain on the MLTSSL. This was virtually a pre-determined outcome given the role the Federal Government has played in planning, implementing and maintaining the oversupply of the engineering labour market over the last five years. The DJSB methodology is so skewed and lacking in transparency that it can only be concluded that it is designed to achieve a political outcome, rather than provide any kind of objective assessment of the state of the labour market for individual occupations. The June 2018 submission by the author of this website to the DJSB as part of the consultation process can be viewed here: https://engineeroversupply.weebly.com/submissions.html The author’s May 2018 review of the DJSB methodology and points-scoring system can be found at the same link. |
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November 2018
CategoriesAuthorJim Oakley |