Australia’s Bizarre Skills Shortage

It didn’t take much to throw supply chains into chaos. Just two short years of immigration restrictions and it became abundantly clear that Australia needs immigrants to keep the country moving. And when we think visas for a skills shortage, it’s teachers, it’s miners, it’s nurses right? The current list of skills we’re crying out for has some Australian workers scratching their heads!

We’re short on musicians, what?

Our skills shortage includes some industries with high unemployment here in Australia. While we’ve got a plethora of available musicians and dancers, the 482 visa allows for a shortage in… good ones? Specific ones? This has “touring act” written all over it, except many of these are the long-term visa options.

• Arts administrators

• Dancers

• Choreographers

• Musicians

• Art Directors

• Multimedia producers

• Tennis coaches

• Footballers

• Photographers

• Archbishops

• Musicians (are we facing a national crisis here!)

• Videographers

• Copywriters

• Librarians and museum curators

• Illustrators

• Web and graphic designers

• Jewellery designers

• Naturopaths

• Florist

• Dog handler

• Make up artists

Low Employability Degrees and Regional Shortages Don’t Match Up

When we think skills shortages in the regions, we think teachers, doctors and fruit pickers, right? But many of the job listed as shorted in the regions come from sectors like farming technology, construction, social work, psychology, humanities, cultural graduates, mathematicians, communications experts, tourism and creative arts. They’re all on the ‘shortage list’. And the lowest employability degrees in Australia? You guessed it; All of those. Meanwhile, the education industry has been inundated with courses for foreign students who want to work in Australia.

Should Federal Spending be Further Redirected to Regional Migration?

While once state and federal grants, salary and accommodation incentives and relocation allowances drew Australians out of our overpopulated cities and into the country, in a post-Covid world these have largely dried up. Incentivized regional service for key medical and education staff may still exist but more and more, city based schools and health care facilities are finding loop holes to keep staff from heading west. Schemes like the Regional Relocation Grant have long been abandoned by state governments as the federal government moves to plug the regional skills shortage holes with foreign workers.

Are Australians really that scared of what lies west of the range?

Australians are scared more of what doesn’t lie west of the range. Everything from health care to reliable internet is perceived as “worse out west”. Young Australians cite the distance between towns and lack of infrastructure as their main hesitation for leaving the big smoke, despite unaffordable housing and slowing job markets. So, as a nation, we must rely on our foreign staff to keep the trucks on the roads and the fresh produce on the table. Even, it seems, the dancers on our stages and the videographers on our screens.