LETTER FROM SYDNEY:The former colony now wants the best, most educated people Ireland has to offer. And it's getting them in droves, writes PÁDRAIG COLLINS
IRISH PEOPLE used to have to commit a crime to earn a move to Australia. It was a method of emigration that didn’t attract the best Ireland had to offer.
Charles Darwin thought the new colony’s British and Irish criminal base was setting it up for disaster. After visiting Australia in 1836, he wrote that “it can hardly fail to degenerate”.
He may have got the origin of the species right, but he got Australia absolutely wrong. Darwin would not recognise the free, stable and prosperous society Australia has become.
And Australia now does want the best, most educated people Ireland has to offer. It’s getting them in droves. In the year to the end of June, 2,501 Irish people got residence visas for Australia, up from 1,989 in the previous 12 months.
The increase in one-year working holiday visas is even more dramatic. The number issued to Irish people aged 18 to 30 rose by a third, up to 22,788 in the year to June 30th, from 17,120 in the previous year.
Some are coming to Australia for sun, sand and adventure, but most are coming for jobs. Australia’s unemployment rate is 5.7 per cent, compared to 12.4 per cent in Ireland. The global economic downturn has affected Australia, but nothing like in most other developed economies.
Brian Briscoe, a recruitment consultant who moved from Dublin to Perth 10 years ago, says Australia is strongly emerging from its minor downturn. “In the last eight weeks there has been an increase in the number of employers asking me about overseas workers. Employment is picking up and they can’t find enough talent among local workers,” he says.
“One of my biggest clients has just asked me to prepare a project to go to Ireland for engineers, estimators, contracts specialists and project managers who want to work in Australia. A lot of employers are turning to Irish people. They know they are skilled and hard working and they also fit socially, with a similar sense of humour, attitude to work and attitude to life.
“There are a lot of people coming to Australia with engineering degrees, but not many who fit with the work ethic and social dynamics as well as Irish people do,” says Briscoe.
However, Australia is getting pickier about whom it wants on a permanent basis. Though it may not affect Australia as much as most countries, the global economic downturn has meant that certain skills, mainly in the building trades, were taken off Australia’s critical skills list (CSL) for immigration this year.
“The [Australian] government is attempting to target particular occupations,” says Sydney-based Irish migration agent John McQuaid. “It enables Australia to cherry-pick people, but it is a bit of a setback for people whose trades have been taken off the critical list.”
There are three separate lists of desirable skills Australia is seeking from permanent residency applicants. As well as the CSL, there is also the migration occupations in demand list (MODL) and the longer skills occupation list (SOL).
The CSL determines whether Australian visa applicants are eligible to receive priority processing when lodging their application. While the CSL was only introduced on January 1st, 2009, a rapid fall off in construction work saw several trades-based occupations removed from the list soon after. Trades affected included bricklayers, welders, plumbers, metal fitters and carpenters.
As a result, the CSL is focusing almost entirely on occupations in the healthcare, medical, engineering and IT professions.
McQuaid says having an employer sponsor your application is the quickest way to get a permanent visa. “With an employer sponsor, visa processing can be done in three months. If you’re not on the CSL or MODL, but are on the SOL you could have a waiting time of three years without sponsorship.
“We’re assuming that as the economy picks up, that time frame will shorten and particular trades will move up the list.”
The United Nations annual index of human development found Australia second only to Norway in a living conditions index that includes life expectancy, education and purchasing power.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported last year that: “Australia is one of the most socially mobile countries in the OECD. What your parents earned when you were a child has very little effect on your own earnings.” It also said that in recent years the level of income inequality in Australia fell below the OECD average for the first time.
Those moving to Australia in 2010 will mostly find it is still a land of opportunity. “This is a country which rewards hard work,” says Briscoe.