Australia's General Skilled Migration program 2020-2021. Where is it heading to this Financial year?

Australia's Skilled Migration Program 2020-21

September 12, 2020•4 min read

Superseded. This article covers the 2020-2021 program year and is kept for reference only. Program settings, caps, occupation lists and policy change without notice. Check the current requirements on the Department of Home Affairs website before you act.

Australia's General Skilled Migration program 2020-2021. Where is it heading to this Financial year?

Suman Dua MARN 1800859Sep 13, 20203 min read

States and Territories have recently received a very small allocation of places for Business Innovation and Investment program and SC 491/190 nominations, until the Federal Budget is handed down on 6 October 2020.

States can only invite occupations that are critical to the COVID economic recovery. The critical occupations and industry sectors are listed on the Department's website.

• providing critical or specialist medical services, including air ambulance, medical evacuations and delivering critical medical supplies

• with critical skills required to maintain the supply of essential goods and services (such as in medical technology, critical infrastructure, telecommunications, engineering and mining, supply chain logistics, agricultural technology, food production, and the maritime industry)

• delivering services in sectors critical to Australia’s economic recovery (such as financial technology, large scale manufacturing, film and television production and emerging technology), where no Australian worker is available.

More information: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/home

This is further confirmed by the below update available on South Australia’s website

Based on direction from the Department of Home Affairs, applications will be prioritized according to:

· High quality applications within the Business Innovation and Investment Program, with those who have already lodged an ‘Intention to Apply’ given priority consideration.

· Applicants critical to supporting South Australia’s response to the COVID19 pandemic, including individuals providing critical or specialist medical services, critical skills required to maintain the supply of essential goods and services; or delivering services in sectors critical to Australia’s economic recovery.

· Early consideration to onshore applicants that satisfy the above criteria.

More information: https://migration.sa.gov.au/

Department announced the occupation ceiling for 2020-2021 Financial year on 13th August 2020 and has also released the official results of July 2020 skill select invitation round.

An 'occupation ceiling' may be applied to invitations issued under the independent, skilled regional (provisional) visas. This means there will be a limit on how many EOIs can be invited for skilled migration from an occupation group. This ensures that the skilled migration program is not dominated by a small number of occupations. Once this limit is reached, no further invitations for that particular occupation group will be issued for that program year. Invitations will then be allocated to intending migrants in other occupation groups even if they are lower ranking. See 'occupation ceilings' tab on this page.

Occupation ceiling values are based on a percentage of stock employment figures for each occupation. Employment figures are provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and represent the number of people employed in Australia in each occupation.

Occupation ceilings do not apply to State or Territory Nominated, Employer Sponsored or Business Innovation and Investment visa sub classes.

Occupations ceiling has increased for some Engineering and health professionals.

Below is a comparison for some of the occupations: