Overview of Current Job Market in Regional Victoria

Victoria located in the south east of Australia is roughly the size of Britain and all regions are in easy reach of the metropolitan district of Melbourne. The Victoria migration unit are actively seeking skilled migrants to move to the region to fill skill shortages across the spectrum from Pastry chef's and Butchers to teachers and welders. Vacancies exist in Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Grampians-Pyrenees, Goulburn-Murray, Horsham, Mildura, Swan Hill, Wangaratta, Warrnambool and Wodonga.

Geelong with its 137,220 strong population is Victoria’s second largest city situated on the Coast 72km from Melbourne and surrounded by some of Victoria’s most beautiful landscapes. Geelong offers the perfect Australian lifestyle with its mix of inner city, suburban, coastal and rural areas together with a strong economy, employment opportunities, state-of-the-art healthcare and educational resources and a vibrant multicultural community.

Opportunities in Geelong currently exist for key medical professionals including Nurses, Radiographers/Sonographers, Health Information managers, Theatre Technicians, GPs, Podiatrists, Bio-medical Engineers, Pharmacists, Dentists, Physiotherapists, Occupational therapists and Speech Pathologists.

Ballarat is Victoria’s largest inland city just 110km from Melbourne. It's beautiful Victorian buildings and wide, tree-lined streets serve as a reminder of the town's proud history as a major source of wealth and employment for Victoria. Ballarat offers people a rich heritage, contemporary urban lifestyle and a diverse range of outdoor activities as well as schools at all education levels including two universities.

As one of Australia's fastest growing cities Ballarat's economic growth depends heavily on finding skilled migrants to fill vacancies for GPs, Medical specialists, Allied Medical Professionals, Engineers, Accountants, Urban and Regional planners and Computer Programmers.
Sponsorships are available for people who meet the criteria set by the Victoria Government. If you are interested in sponsorship in the state of Victoria you should speak with a MARA registered migration agent or visit http://www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au/

If you are looking for sponsorship our Sponsored Employment Page contains an up-to-date list of vacancies in the Victoria Region where sponsorship is available for overseas candidates.

Northern Territory Growth to Strengthen

The latest Access Economics report has forecast a strong economic rebound for the Northern Territory region over the next five years.

The report released yesterday details a growth of 3.5 per cent growth over the next five years – the third biggest growth forecast behind Western Australia and Queensland.

Economic growth is expected to be low at around 0.3 per cent in the 2009/10 period but rebound strongly to 4.1 per cent in the 2010/11 period as private investment returns and there is an expected increase in consumption, population growth, and improvement in housing construction and improved economic conditions in the Territory’s key tradingpartners. The longer term growth prospects are much stronger, with the economy expected to show strong growth reaching 6.4% in 2012 -13.

The report also details employment growth in the region of 2.7 per cent which would make it the highest in Australia.

The government are believed to have invested $1.3 billion in infrastructure over the last 12 months, lifting public expenditure by 19 per cent in the region. Government expenditure in schools, police stations and health facilities is thought to have helped to keep the economy strong in the past 12 months.

New Sponsored Employment Page

As the Australian employment rate continues to rise and companies have the confidence to start hiring once more we are seeing some really positive feedback from our partners in Australia.

Recruiters who wouldn't consider overseas candidates 6 months ago are now keen to hear from people looking to migrate to Australia as the skills shortage gains momentum.

In order to aid our recruitment partners across Australia we have launched our Sponsored Employment page where we will display vacancies open to skilled overseas candidates. Each of the vacancies listed in this section will offer assistance with state sponsorship or employer sponsorship to the successful candidate.

The section currently has over 60 opportunities situated in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, Southern Australia and the Northern Territory. The vacancies include positions in the Automotive, IT, Medical, Finance, Transport and Engineering sectors and new positions will be added daily.

This is in addition to the 60,000 jobs listed by over 550 recruiters and employers in our job portal.

WA Migration Strategy to Address Skill Shortages

The Western Australia state government will join forces with the Chamber of Commerce and industry Australia (CCIWA) and Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA (CME) to develop a skilled migration strategy to address the state’s looming skills shortage.

Training and workforce development minister Peter Collier outlined the key areas the strategy would address including:

• Assessing existing migration policy and practices and looking at how this needs to change to better meet the needs of the state’s skill shortages

• Analysing the role temporary and permanent skilled migration plays in meeting skill shortages

• Identifying any barriers to WA being a destination of choice for skilled and business migrants

• Considering international students, business migration, interstate migration, a regional perspective, and the impact on social and hard infrastructure

This project is expected to be vital in alleviating the predicted future skill and labour shortages whilst maximising opportunities for Western Australians.

According to CCIWA, an additional 400,000 workers will be required in WA over the next 10 years. Over 26,000 of these workers would be needed in the resources sector alone.

The WA skilled migration strategy is expected to be released in June.

To read our guide to Lifestyle and Opportunities in Western Australia Click Here.

Australian Recruiters call for Government to Reconsider Sponsorship Rules

Recruiters are calling for the government to reconsider the sponsorship rules and review the number of 457 visas granted as they become increasingly concerned about restrictions on the number of skilled overseas technology workers and the delay this could cause to major projects such as the National Broadband network due to start this year.

Since the government changes to immigration regulations early in 2009 very few IT recruiters now have their own on-hire labour agreements meaning there have been fewer 457 temporary business visa sponsorships in order to get skills to where they are urgently required.

One of Australia’s biggest IT & T recruiters Peoplebank has an on-hire labour agreement with the federal government and estimated they would import 150 to 200 overseas workers annually. However they are currently looking to negotiate an increase with the Immigration Department as they experience a 30% uplift in demand and anticipate a skills shortage by the middle of this year in NSW, Victoria and Canberra.

“There is a recognition that certain skill sets just can’t be found in Australia. For example, there are SAP projects that simply the skills are not here. They have never been done before in Australia. So they are coming out of Europe,” Peoplebank acting chief executive Jeff Knowles said.

“Every month there is an increase in opportunities that are available, so therefore there is the same increase in the need for niche people from overseas, “ Mr Knowles said.

Jonathan Wiles, technology Managing director at Michael Page agrees. “Whilst it is a hot topic at the moment, if the government doesn’t take into consideration what is likely to happen in the economic growth then it is going to make it a lot harder for companies to find the skill sets and be competitive both locally and globally.”

Technical specialists like Java developers, .NET developers, and those with a specialism in visualisation storage, voice and data and SAP are currently most in demand along with applications and analyst programmers and Software Designers.

Figures show that just 1,500 computing professionals were granted 457 visas in the year to 28 February which was down from 2810 in the year to February last year.

Recruiters call for the government to reconsider the sponsorship rules and review the number of 457 visas granted.

Australian Job Adverts Continue to Rise

A leading employment survey shows employers becoming more confident about the economic outlook with job ads up eight per cent in March compared to the same time a year ago.
The ANZ job advertisement series found that the total number of job ads placed in newspapers and on the internet rose by 1.8 per cent to 162,692 a week.

ANZ chief economist Warren Hogan said "This month's continuation in job ads growth suggests labour demand is strengthening in early 2010 and confirms the rapid improvement in economic conditions in Australia over the past six months."

Mr Hogan said ANZ expected the unemployment rate to ease through the rest of 2010, albeit with "temporary wobbles".

The unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage points in February to 5.3 per cent. The ANZ report expect the figure for March to remain at 5.3 per cent despite their March report showing an extra 12,000 jobs added during the month.