Archive for category Moving to Australia

Demand for Skilled Workers in Australia – On the Rise Again

According to the Bureau of Statistics, Australia, the demand for workers in Australia is still on the rise:

June saw Australia’s unemployment rate calling to 5.1 per cent, the lowest recorded rate since January 2009. This translates to a  net rise of approximately  45,900 jobs. Well above the predicted job rate increase and the biggest net jobs gain since since January.

Of course the implications of the increasing demand for jobs should mean that politicians stop playing politics, and start looking at the real numbers and what such shortages bode for the Australian economy.

Click here for more information about job rates and here for more about the impact of rising job demands on migration and the economy.

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Sort Out My Visa is a Australian and NZ visa specialist, providing visa and migration services to individuals and families wanting to travel to, conduct business, work or live in Australia or New Zealand. Visit Sort Out My Visa for more information.

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Australian Department of Immigration – DIAC – on YouTube

To find out more about the Australian Department of Immigration  – commonly known as DIAC – and about migrating to Australia, you may want to have a look at some of the videos posted up by the DIAC.

You will find stories of interest from other migrants (who have already gone through the visa aopplication process) and more.

The website can be accessed by following this link: DIAC on YouTube.

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Sort Out My Visa is a Australian and NZ visa specialist, providing visa and migration services to individuals and families wanting to travel to, conduct business, work or live in Australia or New Zealand. Visit Sort Out My Visa for more information.

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Construction workers, Engineers, miners – Shortages Increase in Australia

According to The Age newspaper, the huge planned Chevron natural gas project (worth about $US40 billion) in Australia, together with other gas mining projects, will result in severe shortages of construction workers and will force the Department of Immigration to relax rules so that enough workers can enter the country and undertake work required to get the oriject underway.

Mining projects – about 12 are currently planned or underway -  fuel Australia’s economy and workers hired by mining recruitment firms are reeady to offer high premiums for skilled workers such as welders, pipe fitters, project managers and engineers. In Western Australia alone, the State is predicting a shortage of about 40 000 construction workers. About 70 000 workers will be needed Australia wide in the next decade.

Click here to read the full story.

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Sort Out My Visa is a Australian and NZ visa specialist, providing visa and migration services to individuals and families wanting to travel to, conduct business, work or live in Australia or New Zealand. Visit Sort Out My Visa for more information.

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Australia First to Raise Interest rates

In keeping with Australia’s continuing economic growth despite the otherwise global economic downturn, the Australian central bank was the first of the G20 nations central banks to raise interest levels (from 3% to 3.25%). In addition, the central bank has indicated that interest rates would continue to rise if economic growth continues at the present rate.

This rise in interest rates is great news for people planning to live, work or invest in Australia.

Click here for more details about the Australian economy and it’s changes in interest rates.

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If you woudl like to find out how you can obtain a visa for Australia, please contact Sort Out My Visa for a free assessment of your best visa options.

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Australia Ranks Second as Best Country

Australia has again been named the second best country in the world to live in! (Australia has maintained the same ranking for the second year running.)

According to the United Nations worldwide survey, the Human Development Report – which takes into consideration factors such as life expectancy, education and standard of living, Australian follows Norway as the best country to live.

This inevitably means that more people will be wanting to migrate to Australia to take advantage of all the benefits – sunshine, great education system, democratic system, great lifestyle – it has to offer.

Click here for the detailed report: UNDP Human Development Reports

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The Australia Capital Territory (ACT) Sponsorships Are Back!

We have been waiting anxiously for the release of the new ACT State Sponsorship lists, and here they are:

ACT Sponsorship List of Occupations in Demand

ACT Sponsorship “Off List” of Quota Occupations

Thankfully, the ACT has clearly given a lot of consideration to the skills shortages in the ACT. And the news is good on all fronts – tradesmen/women, engineers, IT professionals,  and health professionals are just some of the skilled workers required in the ACT. Here is more information about the ACT’s guidelines:

ACT (subclass 176 visa) Sponsorship Guidelines-September 09

ACT (subclass 886 visa) Sponsorship Guidelines- September 09

With a population of just over 300,000, the ACT is not so much as “territory” as it is a city. In fact, it comprises Australia’s Capital City, Canberra, it houses Australia’s High Court, and it is surrounded by great countryside.

The ACT has long been maligned by many as a boring bureaucratic hub, but it is in fact much more than that. As the seat of Government it has great job potentials, it is young, vibrant, safe, and within driving distance of Sydney and Melbourne.The ACT has the lowest unemployment rate and the highest paid salaries. And the ACT representatives are extremely keen to offer help and information so that all new migrants are well settled in on arrival to the ACT.

Click here for more information about moving to and living in the ACT and Canberra:
Live In Canberra.Com

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Sort Out My Visa is a MARA registered migration services provider. We are happy to provide free advice about your best visa options for Australia and New Zealand.

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Proud to be a Convict

During the 80 or so years when the UK shipped off its convicts to its colonies in the 18th and 19th Centuries, more than 165,000 were transported to Australia (initially known as New Holland) to found new penal settlements. For a long time Australians felt embarrassed to admit of a convict past, but now-days most are more likely to boast about such a colourful heritage. Besides, most convicts were transported to Australia for petty crimes, committed in hard times, such as a stolen loaf of bread or ribbon. In those days more serious crimes – 222 crimes were listed and included offences like cutting down someone else’s tree – led to the death by hanging.

So it is with great interest that Australians will be looking at the new information now available at the British national Archives and online at the Ancestry website: www.ancestry.co.uk. For the first time both are making new information regarding convicts’ actual convictions availble online. This should make for fascinating geneological research. Especially for those whose anscestors went on to become crucial to the successes of the new Australian settlements.

Click here to read more about the internet availability about your ancestors convictions.

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Sort Out My Visa is a MARA registered migration services provider. We are happy to provide free advise about your best visa options for Australia or New Zealand.

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Driving in WA – Are New British Migrants driving legally?

For most British migrants arriving into Western Australia, there are a number of competing priorities however almost universally, most will rate finding a house to rent or buy, finding a job and enrolling kids in school in the top 5 things to do on arrival.  In addition, having access to a car or means of transport is usually just as important too in order for the new family to be able to take care of the above!  Visiting 6 houses in 6 different suburbs in one day is very difficult to arrange if you are working around bus timetables!  Most States of Australia give new migrants a little flexibility in this respect.  While the rules vary slightly from States to State, the general rule of thumb is that new migrants who have been granted permanent visas are given 3 months from the date of arriving in Australia to transfer their recognised licences over to their Australian counterparts.  That is, except if you are intending on living and driving in Western Australia.

In a curiously worded statement on the website of the  Department of Primary Industries (the Western Australia authority charged with driving licensing provisions) the period within which British licences can be transferred to Western Australian licences has been limited to 3 months from the date of grant.  This is irrespective of whether or not the applicant actually even steps foot in Western Australia during this time.  This fails to take into account the fact that the new migrant may still be living, working and driving in Britain (or indeed anywhere in the world) during this period.  While there is no uniform time period that new migrants have from the date their visas have been granted to the date before which they must travel and enter Australia; it is usually more than 3 moths.  Indeed under Policy the Department of Immigration and Citizenship will extend the date by which a prospective migrant has to enter Australia by at least 3 months if there is not already a reasonable period for the migrant to enter.  In my experience, I have never experienced a visa being granted that provides for less than three months for entry.  As such, almost all British nationals who are granted permanent visas for Australia will have more than 3 months available to legitimately travel to and enter Australia.

The upshot of this is that British nationals who have been granted permanent visas to Australia and who arrive in Western Australia, more than 3 months after their visas were granted (which they are legally permitted to do), do not have legal authority to drive on their British licences.  With an enormous number of new migrants heading straight from the Baggage Reclaim area to Hertz, Avis and, we can envisage many falling foul of this slightly absurd interpretation of the law.  This scenario could be avoided, we suppose, by the DPI setting up shop just beyond the immigration officials at the Perth International Airport, but really is it necessary to come to that?

There is one straight forward remedy to this situation; the Department of Primary Industries should adopt the following interpretation of their licensing laws:
1. If a migrant is granted permanent residence while in Australia, then they are authorised to drive on their British licence for up to 3 months from the date of grant; and
2. If a migrant is granted permanent residence while outside of Australia, then they are authorised to drive on their British licence for up to three from from the date they arrive in Australia.

We have contacted the WA Government to alert them to this anomaly in their regulations and will post up an update as soon as we have some feedback.

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$1 a week rental in Regional Victoria

The local community of Wycheproof, a small town in regional Victoria, has hit on a great idea to attract new residents to the town: $1 a week rental charges.

The strategy is simple: if you are worried that your local football team won’t have enough players, or that your local school will not have enough pupils, why not offer up some vacant farm houses or properties for a super low rent. Like bees to the honey, new residents will come flocking.

Wycheproof is not the first town to have successfully adopted this strategyl; the towns of Levendale in Tasmania and Cumnock in NSW successfully tried similar strategies to attart more school pupils and so save the school bus run.

Likewise, since word of Wycheproof’s offer got out, the town has been innundated with expressions of interest. If you are regionally minded, and you are interested in what Wycheproof has to offer, you have until 3 August to get your application in! Follow this link to find out more about living in Wycheproof and to apply: www.wycheproof.vic.au

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5 Australian Cities and 1 New Zealand City in Annual Top 20 Places to Live in List

The rationale given by prospective migrants who view Australian cities as offering a better quality of life than British cities appears to have been vindicated by a recent British study.  Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane have all been named in the top 20 Cities in the World to live in according to the most recent Liveability Survey conducted by the publishers of the Economist.

Taking into account stability, health care, environment, infrastructure, education and culture, the annual survey assesses 140 cities worldwide and gives each city a final rating out of 100.

Auckland and Wellington came in 12th and 23rd respectively. Only two British Cities made the list of 140; Manchester and London. But both were well outside the top twenty.

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Thumbs Up for the Australian Economy!

According to The Age, unlike the economies of almost the rest of the World, the Australian Economy is actually doing reasonably well. In fact, the Australian economy grew in the March quarter.

This does not mean that Australia has been completely unaffected by the recession elsewhere in the World – it is true, for example, that there has been a rise in unemployment. But the state of the economy prior to the economic downturn means that Australia is well cushioned as it waits out the economic downturn.

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