Highlights
- A new paper by CEDA recommends promoting migration, bringing back international students
- CEDA tells government to introduce new work visa to attract large multinationals
- Extend JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments to temporary visa holders
Skilled Immigrants will be crucial to Australia's economic recovery and the government should resist any policy to impose extreme restrictions on them, CEDA has said.
Instead, it wants the government to promote migration and make the most of this time to attract the best talent in the world as other countries impose blanket restrictions on migrants, the think-tank has advised.
“Migration has been a key driver of Australia’s economic development and will continue to be so in the decades ahead,” CEDA Chief Economist, Jarrod Ball told SBS Hindi on Monday as it released its new paper, .
“What we have got to be thinking about is, as we recover, what are the settings that are going to get us the best migration that we can get and being competitive globally.
“We have seen a number of countries like the United States make quite big blanket decisions around ceasing skilled migration for the time being. So, there is a real opportunity, I think for Australia, to put itself out there and make sure it is attracting migrants into the recovery phase.”
CEDA research states migrants generally return to their home country in periods of an economic downturn but due to the current border closures, this has not been the case.
It points out that the departure of migrants could prove to be detrimental for the economy.
'Between 1929 and 1934, during the Great Depression, the US repatriated almost 400,000 Mexican migrants because of concerns about the employment of US workers. A study that investigated this program found that it reduced the employment opportunities of US workers and led to a compositional change in the various labour markets,' the paper states.
Introduce new work visa
CEDA recommends the government introduce an intra-company transfer visa to assist multinational businesses looking to invest and expand their operations in Australia.
“A number of other advanced economies such as the US and the UK, have these intra-company transfer,” Mr Ball told SBS Hindi.
Australia Visa Source: Stock Image
“It is really a recognition that large multinationals have quite globally mobile executives who move around different locations and they are generally trusted operators in the visa system.
“So enabling them, to be able to move their resources around the world more easily is important and I think, also, providing an incentive for bringing more of their resources, here in Australia, is important, especially at a time, in which we will be wanting businesses to grow and for more people to be located here so that we can grow on the other side of this crisis,” Mr Ball said.
Listen to what CEDA’s Chief Economist Jarrod Ball says on migration, new visa:
LISTEN TO
Promote migration, introduce a new work visa for post-COVID-19 economic recovery, CEDA tells government
SBS Hindi
06:21
CEDA has also called on the Federal Government to extend the JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments to temporary migrants such as students and those on skilled work visas, as other countries have done with their own pandemic payments.
Bring back international students
CEDA: The government should restart the flow of international students. Source: Getty Images/Klaus Vedfelt
‘This sector cannot be left to wither on the vine,’ CEDA’s Senior Economist Gabriela D’Souza has said in the paper.
Not just big cities, regional Australia needs migrants too
Adelaide-based registered migration agent Mark Glazbrook agreed migration is crucial to Australia’s economic recovery but says the government also needs to keep regional centres, outside Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, in mind.
“The CEDA report is interesting but is focused on highly skilled migration which will certainly benefit Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It is time that CEDA and the Australian Government consider the benefits of demand-driven migration, especially in regional Australia,” Mr Glazbrook told SBS Hindi.
Mr Glazbrook said Australia’s migration policies have a far larger impact than most people think.
“Migration is critical to Australia’s economic recovery due to its impact and relationship to ageing, unemployment, the demographics of our workforce and population base, productivity, fertility, economic activity, employment and training, current and future workforce demand, business sustainability, regional depopulation, including international student enrolments in regional areas and Net Interstate Migration (NIM) loss as all of these metrics will be impacted in either a positive or negative way depending on the future structure and settings of the migration program, in particular, Australia’s regional and low population growth programs,” he said.
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