Tighten visa requirements for ICT skills: Experts

James Riley
Friday, 31 July 2009 12:47

Business IT - Technology

Australian education and immigration authorities should dramatically increase local ICT graduate numbers to plug holes in the nation’s tech skills supply rather than relying on greater numbers of 457 short-stay visa holders, Monash University immigration expert Bob Birrell says.

The ICT sector would almost certainly face skills shortages in the ICT sector as the economy returns, and more work was needed to reverse the sharp declines of the past decade in the number of local kids enrolling in undergraduate technology degrees.

The response should include programs to assist students in getting hands-on professional experience through expanded graduate programs, in order to wean business off its reliance on 457 visas to find “ready-baked” employees offshore, Dr Birrell said.

Although the Rudd Government had introduced significant reform to the 457 short stay visa program, making it more difficult to sponsor overseas employees, there was concern the measures could be wound back in the face of expected skills shortages next year.

“There really should be a lot more attention on domestic training, not on simply using the 457 program as a prop,” Dr Birrell, who is co-director of Monash's Centre for Population and Urban Research, told iTWire.

“Opening the taps of 457’s may be a part of the solution to the extent that we will always rely in part on immigration,” he said. “But for the longer term I would like to see a lot more focus on domestic training and the building of local skills.”

Meanwhile the Australian Computer Society continues to press the federal government to apply stricter assessment requirements on the qualifications of 457 visa applicants.

ACS chairman Kumar Parakala said the same assessment of professional qualifications applied to applicants for permanent visas under the General Skilled Migration Scheme should also be equally applied to the 457 visa classification.

“This would ensure that applicants have the skills they are claiming to have, that these skills are in an area considered in short supply and that they have an appropriate level of English,” Parakala told iTWire.

The ACS is generally supportive of the 457 visa program, arguing that they are an important source of skills for plugging short term gaps. ACS calls for assessments of the short stary visas are unsurprising – the not-for-profit Society makes a large portion of its income through providing assessment services to the Immigration department’s general skilled migration scheme.

“The forecasts for the ICT sector in Australia even with the impact of the GFC is that there will remain a strong demand for ICT skills within Australia which is one of the key growth sectors,” Parakala said.

“Not all of this demand can be met from within Australia and students and 457 Visas do play a positive role in supporting our sector and its skills needs.  We need to have an informed discussion on this.”

The ACS has also pressed government to improve its skills matching, to better identify where shortages exist in the market and where skills can be found. Better matching would reduce the “lag effect” between skills demands and visa assessment.