Sydney: After Australian corporate headhunters, higher education vendors and skilled migration programme mandarins, it's now the turn of country town councillors to tour India to promote their welcoming backyards.
Troubled by skilled worker shortage, officials from Australia's country towns or rural areas are reportedly touring India to entice immigrants.
The city council of a Victorian town Ballarat had recently funded a former official to visit Bangalore to recruit potential immigrants right from the source.
"As a result of that trip, people of Ballarat have adopted India as a second country," said David Keenan, acting manager of city development.
"Next March, nearly 2,000 Indian athletes and performers will come to Ballarat as part of the Commonwealth Games in Australia. This would be a fantastic bonus for the local economy," Keenan said.
"We're focusing on Indians because their skills base ties well with our desire to build our IT industry. We are also looking forward to create two more sister cities in India," a Ballarat council official was quoted by the Financial Review as saying.
While dwindling population is seen as the primary reason for town councillors to target Indian professionals, such campaigns are also sending signals that skilled labour shortage in Australia is assuming worrying proportions.
Like country towns, the metropolitan centres are also reeling under an unprecedented shortage of professionals in various sectors.
The federal government had recently announced a sharp increase of 20,000 skilled immigrants in Australia in the current financial year.
But authorities governing country towns have fears that an overwhelming majority of these immigrants would settle in cities like Sydney and Melbourne.
While the federal government is planning a series of fairs in countries like India, China and Britain to attract skilled professionals, the country towns are doing their best to browbeat their urban counterparts.
The Australian immigration department has taken measures to allay such fears. A number of regional-skilled visas are being offered to encourage potential immigrants to choose country towns.
These visas have two subclasses - skilled independent regional (SIR) and regional sponsored migration scheme (RSMS).
Such incentives to settlers in rural areas are reported to be successful as there has been an increase of 50 percent in the number of immigrants (18,700) settling in the regions this year.
Beside Ballarat, country towns like Wangaratta (Victoria), Maryborough, Toowoomba, Whitsundays (all in Queensland), Barossa and Eyre regions (South Australia), New England and Broken Hill regions (New South Wales) are also offering incentives to potential skilled immigrants.
- Paritosh K. Parasher, newKerala.com
Global hunt for 20,000 workers
1 September, 2005
AUSTRALIA will launch the biggest global recruitment drive for skilled migrants since the "ten pound pom" campaign in the 1950s and 60s, as the Howard Government tries to attract 20,000 workers from across Europe and Asia to rescue key industries from labour shortages.
The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs will next month begin a foray into the international jobs marketplace, with officials hold a series of expos in London, Berlin, Chennai and Amsterdam to spruik Australia's culture and lifestyle to foreign workers.
Tradespeople, engineers and doctors are believed to be among the most desperately needed. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Australian Industry Group, the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Minerals and Mining Association have all been asked to nominate the occupations they consider the most in-demand.
The Immigration Department plans to advertise in overseas newspapers from September, inviting prospective skilled migrants to meet employers and state and federal government representatives at the series of expos as part of a $3million skills roadshow where officials will present options for migration under recently relaxed regulations.
Department acting deputy secretary Abul Rizvi told The Australian: "If you think about what we did in the 1950s and the impact that had on Australia, well we're doing it again."
But this time the Government hopes to tailor the campaign to meet specific labour shortages, Mr Rizvi said. "In the 1950s the immigration officers just went out and found these people, this time we are saying, you convince these employers that they want to employ you," he said.
"Australian employers being asked to help in the global marketplace -- the last thing we want is some country getting the jump on us."
After 1945, more than one million British citizens emigrated to Australia under various assisted migration schemes.
The department is considering hosting a further round of expos in 2006 in Bangkok, Seoul, Los Angeles and Manila.
The Queensland, South Australian, Western Australian and ACT governments have expressed the most interest in participating, with Victoria also publicising the events.
The campaign follows an announcement by the Howard Government earlier this year that skilled migration places in 2005-06 would be increased by 20,000, to combat Australia's skills shortages.
The 20,000-place increase is the biggest jump in the migration quota since the 1970s, with the Government offering migrants four-year employer or state-sponsored migration, with the option to stay on permanently.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry will seize the opportunity.
"This is a good move because it's finally co-ordinating this sort of activity across a range of industry bodies and (state and federal) governments too," the chamber's director of education and training, Steve Balzary, said.
"We're going out to companies right now across our membership to get them to identify not only which companies are going, but which occupations they're looking for and which numbers."
Matching skills and employers on the spot was part of the attraction of the department's overseas posts.
"Particularly in places like Chennai, where you get a lot of interest but don't necessarily get the right skills, the Government is helping us get the message out," Mr Balzary said.
Recruitment events in London will take place in September, while Amsterdam, Berlin and Chennai will host expos in October.
The department has also hosted local seminars, with an event in Brisbane in June this year, and officials are planning upcoming events in Melbourne and Perth.
Meanwhile, Labor leader Kim Beazley has urged action to encourage Australia's 900,000 expatriates working overseas to return home or forge closer investment and trade links.
Describing the expat workers as an "untapped resource", Mr Beazley also warned a greater focus on innovation, research and development was required if Australia was to compete against low wage economies in the region.
Speaking at the AIG's national forum in Canberra yesterday, Mr Beazley said simple measures could deliver significant results.
"We should work much harder to capitalise on their links to trade, investment and overseas cultures -- and perhaps encourage a few more to come home," Mr Beazley said yesterday.
"It's estimated there are up to 900,000 Australians working overseas on a permanent or long-term basis. That's almost 10 per cent of the Australian workforce." He said reforms such as a one-stop website for expats, an online register of Australians overseas and university/industry fellowships to encourage workers to return should be considered.
Greater collaboration between universities and industry groups was also required to foster innovation, he said.
"It gives us an edge in competitive global markets where we just can't compete against the low-wage economies in our region," he said.
"Giving priority to skills development also means more opportunities to learn trades at school. It means training Australians first, not turning them away from TAFE colleges, as the Howard Government has done to 270,000 Australians."
AIG chief executive Heather Ridout also suggested new reforms to skills training.
"The current traditional apprenticeship system was largely designed for another era, is hidebound in unnecessary regulation and complicated by overlapping state and federal responsibilities," she said.
- Elizabeth Colman and Samantha Maiden, The Australian
Australia Voted Tops
2 August, 2005
Sydney - Media mogul scion Lachlan Murdoch, who has just announced that he and supermodel wife Sarah O'Hare were leaving Manhattan for a harbourside mansion in Sydney, is not alone in thinking that Australia is the best place to be.
Respondents to a global popularity contest, the result of which were announced on Monday, have voted the land Down Under tops for tourism, exports, investment, culture, heritage and people.
Australia came in ahead of Canada, Switzerland and Britain. It also finished well ahead of Sweden, the winner of the last Nations Brand Index formulated by London-based market research firm Anholt-GMI. Anholt-GMI collated the views of 1 000 people in 10 countries on the respective attributes of 25 countries.
Index co-founder Simon Anholt said Australia seemed perfect in the eyes of the world. Anholt said: "This brand's index shows us the world has an appetite for all things Australian.
"Anything that reflects, promotes and sustains those essential and admired Australian values will sell. "This is Australia's moment of opportunity, take advantage of this and many rewards will be reaped." Australia was ranked the world's most powerful tourism brand and the best place to move to, visit or locate a regional headquarters. Australian employees were admired as being laid back, friendly and hard working. Australians, in general, were seen as "more Swedish than the Swedes" and a beacon of light for liberalism, neutrality and democracy.
Australian Trade Commission economist Tim Harcourt told Australia's AAP news agency that the index flattered Australia on every criterion. Harcourt said: "The world regarded Australia's climate as ideal, its natural environment unique, and a place that would be on everyone's must-see list.
"Australian people are regarded as not only friendly and fair minded but also hard working and very well organised, partly as a result of staging events like the Sydney Olympics."
