subject: Visa Applicants Anxiously Await New Skills List by:Mitch Jones [print this page] When going to Australia, working visa applicants would often have to endure a long process. Indeed getting a work visa can often go anywhere from several months to two years. And it seems that it has gotten even harder with the changes being done by the immigration department.
As can be recalled, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has begun to implement a host of sweeping changes to its various immigration programs since last year. This, according to officials in in line with the government's new thrust of getting the right kind of people into the country. The move, they said, is done in order to solve the current worker shortage that is being experienced by many major industries in the country.
One of the biggest of these changes is the revisions done to the Skills Occupation List (SOL). The SOL is basically the listing of all the jobs available in Australia that are qualified to be granted a visa. In order to meet the government's demand of focusing on getting more higher level workers, the DIAC deemed it necessary to review the contents of the list. Thus, the current SOL was immediately taken down for assessment.
As a result of the move, several visa programs that depend on the SOL for application assessment were immediately put on hold. One of the biggest of these is the general skilled migration program, which covers more than half of the visa applications lodged. With the suspension of these programs, a lot of applicants worry that their chances of getting into the country have become slimmer.
And it seems that they may have to wait for another agonizingly long time. As it is, the review of the whole SOL is taking a lot more time than expected. Though authorities are saying that the revised SOL might be released this coming June, which would mean that the suspended programs can be opened again in July, some experts believe that it is unlikely that the cabinet can finish everything by that time.
However, it is not only working visa applicants whose fates hang in the balance with the release of the much awaited SOL. Many foreign students and educators anxiously await news of the release of the SOL. For the educators, this would be a make or break instance where they would have to decide to continue operations or change everything altogether. For the students one the other hand, it would be a bigger concern, as this would determine if they would still be able to get a visa or not. Some foreign students have, in fact, already decided to just discontinue their applications and head back home for fear that the new SOL would not have qualified jobs for them.
And since there are still no solid confirmation yet from the DIAC on when the SOL will be release, all these people can do is wait and cross their fingers. You can also check the updates on DIAC website or browse any Australian Visa Immigration sites on the net.
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