Getting trickier to get in here

 

I have been out of touch with the whole Australia PR migration thing. But the other day, someone enquired how we got here, and asked for pointers. I looked up some information before passing on my tips, and was surprised that things have changed quite a lot in the meantime.

Changes galore:

For one, they now have the EOI slots only once a month, compared to twice a month earlier. This change was from August 2018. The number of invitations remain the same, but applicants will have to wait and entire month to find out if they made the cut. Ohh..the agony !

Minor news: they changed their website from border.gov.au to immi.homeaffairs.gov.au

They also changed the minimum points required. From July 2018 onwards, an applicant needs to have a minimum of 65 points to apply. This cutoff was earlier 60. This will help Australia get better skilled people, and it means theres no place for lazybones to enter the country.

And…they have set a higher score for some job codes, including the very popular Softwar Engineer. Take a look at the latest results available online, from September 2018.

A minimum 75 points required for Software Engineers now ! No places for 60-65 pointers anymore.

The affect of this new set of rules can be seen in the applications as well. Applicants are buckling up to increase their scores, trying to keep up with the increasing cutoffs. Over at the immigration tracker, there is an increase in the median scores, whereas earlier it was full of applications with 60 & 65, now the most common scores are 70 and above, some even getting 80 !

 

Application charges for some Australian visas are going up on 1 July 2018. The government is hoping to generate $410 million dollars over a four-year period from 2017 to 2021.

 

Fineprint:

So , what does this all mean for new migrants ? Well, most of this was expected. Immigration is currently a hot topic in Australia, they recently had elections in Victoria and candidates were fighting about how the cities are getting populus, where as rural regions remain empty. Also the increase in terrorist-like attacks have gone up, with migrants being arrested for those crimes.

The changes they have brought about are not targetted at any particular country, region, religion or laguage. And that is such good news, compared to how other countries totally ban immigrants just based on their nationality. But these changes will probably affect Indians the most, simply because the receive the highest number of resident permit visas.  Australia is making it more difficult to get in here, this will allow highly skilled and experienced folks to come in. Theres simply no place for anyone average.

But looking at how the applicants are also increasing their own points, it is clear that the higher threshold is still reachable. All it takes is will power (lots of it) and planning (some). Applicants with 5 years experience and good english can easily score 70 points. They need to score top points in English to get higher.

Good luck, and hope you make it too.