Important DIAC Announcement

[ShazPas]

Important DIAC Announcement

Published 5th August 2013

On 5 August 2013 the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) announced that state and territory governments (including the ACT) are not able to nominate any intending migrants for a points tested visa from the following occupations:

Chemical and Materials Engineers;

ICT Business and Systems Analysts;

Electronics Engineers;

Telecommunications Engineering Professionals;

Other Engineering Professional; and

Software and Applications Programmers.

DIAC has been receiving a high level of demand for these occupations. To address this, invitations for these occupations will now be issued by DIAC twice per month (pro rata) over the 2013-14 program year. These invitations will be only issued to applicants for the Skilled Independent (Subclass 189) visa which is not state or territory nominated.

How this affects the ACTs Program:

From 5 August 2013 the ACT is not able to confirm nomination of Skilled-Nominated (Subclass 190) visa for the above six occupations on SkillSelect.

As a result the ACT is not accepting applications for nomination of these six occupations until further notice.

Further information provided by DIAC to explain this decision:

Early in the 2013-14 program year a significant proportion of available places were used up for these six occupations. The same situation occurred in the beginning of 2012-13 which resulted in these occupations reaching their ceilings early.

Based on this ongoing high level of demand, the decision was made to move to a pro rata allocation of places to prevent the ceilings from being met again early in this program year and to allow some skilled workers in these occupations to be invited to apply for a visa throughout 2013-14.

If the decision to implement pro rata allocations had not been made, the available places for these occupations would have been fully exhausted well before the end of 2013-14.

However, it should be noted that employers are still able to directly sponsor skilled workers in these occupations to fill specific skills shortages as employer sponsored visas are not subject to occupational ceilings.

The decision by DIAC to move to pro rata allocation for these six occupations was not taken lightly.

For further information please visit the DIAC website.

[MarkSalter]

more invites but being pushed through the PR189 process...

[TeeTMI]

I think that we will hear more about this over time and that anyone nominating under one of these occupations would be well advised to follow the developments and consider tactics and strategies that might assist their likelihood of receiving an invitation.

As example of what DIAC are referring to is that for ICT Business and Systems Analysts there was a quota of 1380 places allocated for the 2013-14 migration year. The occupation reached its quota last year and in the first month this year 881 places of this years quota were allocated - and that appears to be to applicants with 65+ points.

[Heymanse]

I have a family member in South Africa that every now and then, something would happen to make her say she wants to make the move to Australia. On about 3 different occassion, she would contact me to know what to do and so on and so on. Last time (about 10 months ago), she again started with the process going as far as getting a reputable agent (after I urged her not to go with the dodgy one she first tried out), and eventually also booking her IELTS test. According to the agent, she would be able to get state sponsorship to work in ACT. Her text messages started getting less and on the day she was suppose to go for her IELTS test, I text her a message hoping that all will go well with the test. I go no reply which can only mean one thing. She did not proceed with it. She has not been in contact with me since. So everytime I hear about DIAC not being able to nominate intending migrants for specific occupations, I become more and more frustrated that people like her think that they have the world's time to apply for a visa and don't realise that when the time comes that they actuall DO want to make the move, it might be way too late.....

[chzaau]

Basically the situation is turning out to the following.

1. A lot of candidates are registering for eoi.

2. The cut off seems to be at 65 points. If you below this forget it.

3. As time proceeds the points ceiling will lift up as those with eoi will have to improve there points to stay in the competition.

4. What it also does is provide a searchable pool of candidates for 457 visa for firms to search on, making it harder in time to find a sponsorship on the random.

So in summary Australia tuned there system very well to take the best of the best and cheers to the rest.