The Australian immigration minister has told the Department of Home Affairs to speed up visa applications because there aren't enough skilled workers.
Andrew Giles, the new government's minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services, and Multicultural Affairs, said on Wednesday that the top priority is to clear the backlog of visa applications.
He said that the "extraordinary" length of time it takes to process visa applications has been brought up by the community and the previous government for years.
"The Australian government's top priority is to deal with visa applications that have not yet been processed. I have talked to the Department of Home Affairs about my concerns about how visas are being processed right now, and we are committed to making sure that visa applications are processed quickly."
He said that the old government didn't share information about how many skilled worker visa applications had been made.
But the number of people in Australia with skilled temporary visas has gone down from a high of 195,000 in 2014 to a low of 96,000 in 2022. Andrew McKellar, CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), says that employers have to deal with "protracted" processing times for skilled migrants.
He also said that more resources are needed to shorten the time it takes to process visas. "The current delays just aren't good enough when so many businesses are left without workers and can't afford to stay open," Mr. McKellar said. "To make the skilled migration system more open and fair, we need to allow all skilled jobs to be sponsored by employers."
Since 2018, the wait time for the 476 visa, which is for recent engineering graduates who want to live, work, or study in Australia for up to 18 months, has gone up to a whopping 41 months.
Gurpreet Kaur, an engineer from Punjab, has been waiting for almost four years. She has sent in papers and proof over and over again, but she hasn't been able to talk to anyone in the home affairs department about how her application is going.
"I personally applied for this visa in September 2018, and I'm still waiting for my visa to be approved," Kaur told the Guardian. "Even though I meet all of the requirements and paid the application fee and the medical assessment fee, there are still a lot of applicants from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other countries like me... There are about 6,000 people waiting for their grant.
"Having to wait for three to four years is very frustrating, and I think any government should do something about it because it's unfair to us. We've made plans for our careers, but now we're not only having trouble with our jobs but also with our mental health.
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