Changes for Australian Permanent Residency and Temporary Visa Candidates in 2022

Immigration is one of the core segments of the Australian economy; whether Australia Study Visa or Australia PR, both play vital roles to support the economic recovery. In the last couple of months, Australia immigration has swung into action and announced a few significant changes. These changes have taken place because the Australian government understands the importance of migration and how migrants can uplift the Australian economy, which is affected due to the Wuhan COVID-19 virus pandemic.

Since the COVID 19 pandemic, the Australian government has imposed travel bans and closed its borders for foreign travellers. As a result, according to the Treasury’s mid-year report, the overseas migration was minus 41,000 people in the year 2021-22 than forecasted. However, as per the recent reforms, the picture will change soon and may get touch the migration population of 180,000 people in the year 2022-23. The figure is quite promising and it is almost double the previous estimate. Additionally, the government has also declared an annual migration program for the upcoming years and that will run each financial year from 1 July to 30 June. According to the program for the year 2024-25 almost 235,000 people, they are forecasting.

Who Can Currently Travel to Australia?

Previously only Australian citizens and Australia PR holders were allowed to enter Australia, and their immediate family members were allowed to apply for the exemption. Whereas, according to Australia immigration, from 15 December 2021, eligible international students and certain skilled visa holders are eligible to enter Australia.

An Important Update for The Temporary Visa Holders

During the pandemic situation, the biggest loss has faced by the temporary visa holders. Because of lack of work and welfare support, unfortunately, they are bound to leave Australia. Now, the government is expecting and focusing to offer Australia PR pathways to those deprived class. The recent announcements from Australia Immigration have clarified their intentions.

According to 2021-22, planning level 160,000 places maintain that includes

• 79,600 place for the skilled stream,
• 77,300 place for the family,
• 100 for the special eligibility and
• 3000 for the children.

Australia PR Options for The Skilled Migrants in Health and Hospitality

In November month, the government has announced the important changes to sustain critical sectors’ high-skilled migrants as a part of the economic recovery option. Under the category, certain occupation holder migrants were allowed to stay in Australia while pandemic is on the pick. Because of their occupation, these candidates get an advantage to Applying for the Australian Permanent Residency as well.

• These changes may support those existing Temporary Skill Shortage (subclass 482) visa holders under the short-term stream.
• These visa holders were restricted to stay in Australia for two years with this pathway.
• The non-discontinue Temporary Work Skilled (subclass 457) holders may also get the benefit of the program even if, they are not mating the age requirement.

According to the Australian Immigration minister Alex Hawke, “the stream allows the highly skilled migrant workers the pathway to the Australian Permanent Residency who has chosen to stay in Australia during the pandemic”. As per Mr. Hawke, nearly 20,000 visa holders in the health and hospitality industries may be benefited from the recent changes.

• One of the major segments of the migrants who have been living and working in the major cities and related with the particular hospitality jobs but struggled to go ahead to their permanent residency will get a huge benefit from the stream.
• As per the department’s spokesperson, the changes have been announced on the 25th November 2021 and will implement from December 2021 to 1st July 2022.

Australia PR Options for Regional Skilled Migrants

As per some Australia Immigration Consultants, those candidates benefited the most who were onshore during the pandemic than those offshore candidates who were not in Australia.

• As per the new permanent pathways candidates are eligible to apply for the skilled regional subclass 191 visa who have lived, worked, and studied in designated regional areas.
• The pathway considers that the candidates should be on the 494 visas for at least three years to apply for the skilled regional subclass 191.
• However, as per the department, the visa applications are expected to start from 16 November 2022.

Major Changes for Temporary Graduate Visa Holders

The new stream is targeting those international students who are recently graduated and hold specific skills in specific occupations.

• One of the major changes has been made for the temporary graduate (subclass 485) visa holders who were stuck in their home countries due to the pandemic and unable to travel to Australia.
• Now, as per the changes, they enable them to apply for the replacement visa, and they are also allowed to do work in Australia.
• However, they still need to wait because, as per the government’s rule, the relaxation would apply to current or former temporary graduate (subclass 485) visa holders.
• Candidates whose visas expired on or after 1 July 2020 can apply for new visas with the same duration from July 2022.

Additionally, Australia immigration has benefited from the 485 visas for Masters by Coursework graduates and Graduate Workstream. They have increased the stay period from two to three years for the master’s graduates and 18 months to months for the graduate workstream.

Conclusion

In the recapitulation, as a leading Australia Immigration Consultant and with the experts’ opinions, we would like to add that these certain changes certainly make a huge impact on Australia Immigration and tend people to rethink and reapply for the Australia PR. The implementation was supposed to be done from 1 December 2021 but as the new Wuhan COVID-19 virus changes its variant, the Australian government postponed the declaration until 15 January 2021. However, the Australian economy needs considerable reforms to recover and only skilled migration and international students can support the idea. So it is high time to start the re-evaluation of your profile for the Australian study and Australia PR.