Easier permanent residency for International Students comes with poor employment outcomes

A recent report has revealed that Permanent Residency will become easier to obtain for international students, but they may struggle to join the professional workforce if the government accepts recommendations to change the Skilled Migration Program in Australia.

‘The Birrell Report’, commissioned by Recruitment Success Group (RSG),  forecasts the impact the government commissioned Chaney Report will have on the 70,000 international students completing degrees in Australian Universities.

While the Chaney report was commissioned to improve education export revenue, a potentially unintended consequence will be the worsening of professional employment prospects for international students.

Birrell’s analysis of 2011 census data indicates that just 23% of graduates from Non-English-Speaking-Countries with degrees in IT and Accounting reported that they had secured employment in a professional position. This is about half the rate of those from English speaking countries. 

Recommendation E.4 of the Chaney report suggests increasing the skilled migration points for completing an Australian degree from 5 points to 10, which would make permanent residence available to most Accounting and IT graduates shortly after completing a degree.

This would reverse reforms introduced in 2008 under the General Skilled Migration Program aimed to address growing numbers of international students ending up in lower skilled positions.

To combat the growing numbers of unemployable international students in the late 2000s a new graduate skills visa was set up, to encourage international students to gain language skills and take part in local work experience.

The visa granted students 18 months to prove: a) they had 12 months local work experience in their field, b) they had completed a newly introduced ‘professional-year-program’ (PYP) or c) they had attained a ‘proficient’ level of English.

Participating in the PYP gave students the opportunity to prepare for the Australian workforce by taking part in local internships, and developing Business English skills.

RSG Managing-Director Leanne Ferreira says amendments to tertiary education policy will seriously affect the future of international students- as they will lack valuable skills that can be gained through programs like the PYP.

“We are concerned about the impact of policy changes on the quality of future talent pipelines, especially in Accounting and IT where international students make up the bulk of graduates.  Communication skills and cultural fit are two of the biggest issues we face when recruiting for our clients"

Amending the point system will marginalise the importance of the PYP for international students despite the positive employment outcomes for graduate students of the program.

Therefore the recommendations designed to support the “sustainability and quality” of international education may have the opposite effect.

“It’s crucial for the reputation of Australian education that the quality of and employability of those that do go on to gain permanent residence is preserved...We don’t want to return to the dark days of the late 2000s when thousands of students were gaining permanent residence and struggling to gain professional level employment,” said Birrell.

With the number of international students in Australia set to dramatically increase under the Chaney recommendations; the employment outcomes for skilled migrants will only worsen.

The result of these recommendations will likely be that these degree qualified graduates will end up taking low-skilled jobs and displacing domestic workers, as occurred pre-2008, which is not the intention of the skilled migration program.