While locals continue to get Covid leave payments for not working, Anthony Albanese has been pushed by the NSW government to hire tens of thousands of low-skilled foreign workers to fill the many job openings nationwide.
NSW Treasurer Matt Kean made the demand as a result of a recent prediction that said the state will have 304,000 fewer workers by 2025–2026.
When borders were blocked during the worst of the Covid outbreak, Australia’s dependence on inexpensive immigrant labour, particularly backpackers and international students, was made clear.
Even while those workers are gradually returning, many companies are still grumbling about a lack of qualified employees, especially because the large number of open positions has raised job searchers’ expectations of pay scales.
The government’s continuous distribution of Covid pandemic leave payments to people who claim they are unable to work owing to the necessity to isolate has made the shortages worse, even after the worst of the coronavirus has gone.
Workers may still get up to $750 a week for being forced to isolate due to a potential Covid exposure, and this programme will last at least until the end of September.
As long as companies continue to suffer, NSW Treasurer Kean believes the federal government should begin “stamping passports” immediately.
“The Commonwealth has to make the decision to start stamping passports now,” he wrote in The Australian. “It doesn’t need to wait for a jobs conference, it doesn’t need to ask the unions for approval, it doesn’t need to wait for an October federal budget.”
Tens of thousands of qualified professionals are only waiting for permission to go to Australia and find employment, according to a briefing I received.
He continued by saying that there were “realistic ways” to speed up the procedure, such as increasing the number of skilled visas or developing a new visa that was created exclusively for low-skilled employment.
Alister Henskens, the minister of NSW Skills, has also urged for an increase in the amount of skilled foreign workers entering the nation.
Before criticising the federal Labor administration for “prioritising” unions above companies, he said that the NSW government had tried all remedies for the situation.
According to information from the most recent OECD economic outlook, Australia is now facing the second-worst skills shortage in the whole globe.
According to a KPMG analysis, throughout the years 2021 to 2022, there was no net growth in skilled worker migration.
Additionally, it was discovered that there were 500,000 fewer foreign workers in Australia than there had been before to the Covid epidemic.
In a recent Workforce Skills Survey conducted by Business NSW, 93% of firms in NSW, the state with the most population, said that they were having trouble filling positions.
This indicates that NSW is still bearing the brunt of the country’s economic difficulties.
After announcing the next jobs conference, Mr. Albanese downplayed hopes for possible improvements to Australia’s skills need.
In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, he said that his administration had lower expectations.
We are interested in ensuring that enterprise bargaining can be improved, that we can concentrate on productivity there, and that we can concentrate on how business and unions can work together, the man stated.