Australia is planning its biggest global recruitment drive since the ”£10 pom” campaign of the 1950s by trying to lure 20 000 skilled workers to the country with promises of shorter hours, a better climate and a lower cost of living.
The government says there are shortages in many areas — from doctors to carpenters — and that recruiting from abroad is the only way of shoring up key industries.
The chronic problems have, in part, been caused by an ageing population and the fact that almost one million skilled workers have left the country to work overseas.
Europe is regarded as an important potential recruiting ground, and the immigration department is planning a comprehensive drive that will include advertisements and exhibitions that will play up the advantages of moving from the gloom of the north to the sun down under.
Australian immigration officials will talk up the country’s laid-back culture in the exhibitions, which will take place in London, Amsterdam, and Berlin next month and in October.
Individual companies are providing extra incentives such as cars, laptops and more flexible working hours.
The government is considering a further recruitment drive next year in Los Angeles, Bangkok, Seoul and Manila.
The UK is an obvious recruiting target; the latest immigration figures have earned Perth the tag of Australia’s most British city, with more than 5 000 Britons moving to Western Australia in 2004.
But some politicians have compared the invitation to new workers with the government’s hardline attitude to asylum seekers.
Greg Barns, a former political adviser and Democrat politician, said that John Howard’s government was ignoring the chance to rebuild Australia’s skills and population base through the world’s estimated 17-million refugees and asylum seekers.
However, the government is pressing on, and Abul Rizvi, the acting deputy secretary of the immigration department, said the campaign echoed the post-war drive for skilled migrants. ”If you think about what we did in the 1950s and the impact that had on Australia, well, we’re doing it again,” he said.
That scheme saw more than one million Britons emigrate to Australia under various assisted migration schemes. If prospective migrants could raise the £10 for their fare, the government paid the rest.
But if they decided to return home within two years, they had to pay the £10 back and raise their own travel costs.
Under the current programme, the biggest jump in the migration quota since the 1970s, the government will offer migrants four-year employer or state-sponsored migration, with the option to stay on permanently.
The Australian army hopes to recruit up to 300 British soldiers to fill its dwindling ranks at next month’s London exhibition, while the South Australian government is seeking medical professionals willing to work in rural hospitals. More than 100 former British police officers are pounding the pavement in South Australia after a similar recruitment drive by the state government earlier this year.
”We’re sending a group of senior medical officers to London with the specific mission — go and recruit some doctors,” said Mike Rann, South Australia’s Labor premier.
Salaries for trainee doctors in Australia start at AUS$45 000 (R221 000) and rise to AUS$116 000 (R572 000).
Workers on large infrastructure projects, particularly engineers, are also highly sought after following years of underinvestment which resulted in fewer apprentices being trained in Australia.
However, regional employment groups believe the plan will not go far enough to fill job vacancies in rural Australias. ”Throughout rural and regional Australia there is a desperate shortage of skills and of people,” said Arthur Blewitt, chairperson of the Agrifood Industry Skills Council.
Kim Beazley, Australia’s Labor opposition leader, has also called for the estimated 900 000 Australian expatriates working overseas to return home or forge closer investment and trade links.
Vacancies by state
The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a desperate need for skilled workers in just about every trade.
Western Australia needs skilled recruits for the mining industry, including engineers, planners, building surveyors, IT personnel, environmental health officers, works supervisors and plant operators.
Queensland and Victoria are states desperate for qualified building professionals, including carpenters, joiners and bricklayers.
New South Wales has serious shortages in the manufacturing sector.
South Australia has already recruited more than 100 ex-British police but has room for at least 100 more. The state’s biggest challenge is luring doctors to rural hospitals. – Guardian Unlimited Â