John Ray recently complained that America isn’t allowing in enough skilled migrants. He believes that the US should follow Australia’s lead and bring in more Indian and Chinese computer programmers and engineers.

What John didn’t mention was how controversial the skilled migration program actually is in Australia.

The problem is that it’s very difficult to recruit migrants with exactly those skills needed by the Australian economy at a particular time.

The result is that skilled migration often ends up creating a labour surplus in particular fields which is bad for everyone. It makes it harder for local graduates to get jobs, and it means that many highly skilled migrants end up driving taxis in Australia rather than doing good work in their home countries.

As far back as 1996, there were researchers warning of this problem. This, for instance, is a quote from the Business Review Weekly of November 18th 1996,

“Dr Lynne Williams, former assistant director of the Bureau of Immigration Research, agrees that the programs only target broad levels of qualifications and skills, and are non-discriminatory among occupations, except in the case of doctors. She says the problem with job-matching is that by the time shortages here are pinpointed, and suitable immigrants targeted and brought here, the shortages have usually disappeared.”

Here too is a letter from Gurdip Aurora, President of the Australia India Society of Victoria, published in the Melbourne Age (4/4/1998):

“I am intrigued at the request by the Premier, Mr Kennett, and the Multicultural Affairs Minister, Mr Phil Honeywood, for an additional 50,000 skilled migrants. Are our learned politicians so far away from reality, or is this some sort of cheap political exercise to win ethnic votes? The sad fact is there are no skilled jobs available.

“I know seven highly skilled professionals who have migrated from the subcontinent ... Five are doing jobs fit for year 12 students. In other words, they have deprived five local people from getting these jobs. Of the other two ... [they have] made more than 70 job applications. They have not had one interview call ... Each person is depressed ...”

The Government finally announced an inquiry into the skilled migration system this July. The results of the inquiry became available this morning. According to an Age newspaper report,

“Thousands of young overseas IT professionals and accountants are gaining permanent residency each year as skilled migrants, but ending up working in unskilled jobs such as taxi driving….

“An inquiry commissioned by the Federal Government has found major flaws in the skilled migrant program. The review ... found that it may not be plugging the shortages in Australia’s workforce.”

Note also this highly significant article from the Herald Sun, published just last month. The article is headlined “Migrant flood hits IT jobs” and runs as follows,

“Australian computer studies graduates are missing out on jobs because of a flood of migrant specialists, a report says.

“The report said the influx of thousands of overseas experts had depressed the local market and turned students away from IT courses ...

“... ACS national president Edward Mandla admitted yesterday the skilled migration program was not delivering the “best and brightest” experts for the nation…

“Mr Mandla said a big problem was cash-starved universities flooding the market with overseas students.”

Even the Australian Labor Party is casting doubt on the effectiveness of the skilled migration programme.  Its education spokeswoman, Jenny Macklin, is reported in the above article as criticising the Government because it had massively increased skilled migration instead of training Australians first. She said,

“The Howard Government refuses to publicly admit there’s a problem with the skilled migration program, but has commissioned a secret review to patch up its bungled approach to Australia’s skills crisis.”

She repeated the same criticisms a few days ago. According to this Herald Sun report, she said that the first priority should be to train Australians and that,

“(Immigration Minister Amanda) Vanstone must explain why the Howard Government is importing an extra 20,000 skilled migrants when the current program is not meeting the needs of business ...

“The Howard Government’s priority should be training Australians first, not over-relying on an imported skills quick-fix with no guarantee that extra skilled migrants will actually meet Australia’s skills needs.”

Finally, here is an item from this morning’s Age showing how one of John’s Indians is doing here in Melbourne. He has university degrees in both accountancy and IT but after five years in Australia and more than 100 job applications he is ... driving a taxi. He is now considering either returning to India or training as a bricklayer.

So John has painted too rosy a picture of the Australian skilled migration program. It is actually a contentious policy here, even within the mainstream political parties and the mass media. It does not provide clear evidence that Americans should lift current restrictions on skilled migration.