Changes to the Occupational Ceilings for 2014-2015 (Australia Immigration)

Filipinos who have their eyes on working in Australia have been increasing over the years. Australia is very popular among Filipinos who are finding better employment. The country has been hiring more and more Filipinos to fill in positions they need in their country. With this, Filipinos are very eager to gain more skills here in the country and even complete all necessary requirements necessary for these positions like taking an English proficiency examination like the IELTS or the International English Language Testing System examination.

 

 

If you are applying for a position in Australia, you must have heard about occupational ceilings. For those who are unfamiliar with this, occupational ceiling is a limit on the number of invitations issued through SkillSelect each year. This means that though there are a good number of jobs in Australia, they have put a limit on the number of invitations to thoroughly screen qualified applicants. This occupation ceiling is applicable on these visa types: (1) skilled independent visas, (2) skilled regional visas, and (3) skilled or business state or territory sponsored visas. When the limit has been reached on these visa types, an invitation will not be sent to the applicant.

An important announcement has been released recently regarding changes in the occupational ceiling of these visa types. The said ceiling is no longer applicable to State Nominated visas. It will only be applicable to Skilled – Independent Subclass 189 visas and family sponsored Skilled Regional 489 visas. Meaning to say, each state can nominate occupations even if the ceiling has already been reached – more opportunities to people applying for a job. The occupational ceilings are published for Skilled Occupations List, which means not all occupations on the Consolidated Sponsored Occupations List will have a ceiling.

Here is the number of places available for certain occupations as published in the announcement:

• Engineers (additional 2,530 places)
• Accountants (reduction of 4,242 places)
• Teachers (reduction of 1,170 places)
• IT professionals (additional of 1,132 places)
• Construction Trades (reduction of 2,168 places)
• Chefs (reduction of 1,353)
• Registered Nurses (increase of 15,042)

The changes have taken for 2014 – 2015 Financial year in Australia. The changes have been made to accommodate job positions that have been seen to receive more applications for the past year. The others have been reduced since there were a few applications in the previous year. For more information on these changes and the visa types that are affected with this change, visit Australia’s immigration website - http://www.immi.gov.au/Work/Pages/skilled-occupations-lists/sol.aspx, http://www.immi.gov.au/faqs/Pages/what-is-an-occupation-ceiling.aspx and http://www.immi.gov.au/Work/Pages/skilled-occupations-lists/csol.aspx.