Are Australia’s big employers the laziest and greediest in the world? I mean, at least farmers exploiting migrant labour in the US bother to drive their trucks down to the border to pick up a load of wetback wage-slaves. Australia’s lot expect the cheap foreign labour to come to them, and bugger everyone else.
Australia’s largest employer groups are pushing for a huge increase in migration levels in next year’s budget to counter the skilled workforce crisis and Covid-19 hit to economic growth.
The private sector drive comes as new data reveals the government will rely heavily on net overseas migration to boost record low population growth.
“Record low” meaning that, even as Australia’s borders were closed to Australian citizens overseas, 50,000 foreign migrants were flown into the country. Still, while ordinary Australians welcomed a respite from the staggering levels of mass immigration over the past decades, employers were terrified at the prospect of having to actually train skilled workers and pay them decent wages.
In a submission to the Home Affairs Department, Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said 190,000 places should be made available in the March 29 budget, with a “return to two-thirds of the program being composed of skilled migrants”.
As one commenter put it, doesn’t Australia already have enough Uber drivers and fast food deliverers?
Of course, the lazy business troughers make the usual bogus argument about “economic benefit”.
“Skilled migrants generate the greatest benefits to the Australian community since they contribute directly to our national employment and skills base,” Mr Willox said. “As at 30 June 2021, there were 1,688,700 temporary visa holders in Australia, compared with 2,000,212 on 30 June 2020, a reduction of 311,512 (15.6 per cent) […]
Employer groups said the greatest threat to business growth and investment was the difficulty of finding and retaining skilled labour across key sectors, including engineering, construction, manufacturing and services […]
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar said the government should increase the target for permanent skilled migration intake to 200,000 for “at least the next two years”.
“Businesses of all sizes, across every sector, right around the country, are being hamstrung by the most severe skill shortage in 33 years. A solution is desperately needed,” Mr McKellar said.
And who’s fault is that? Apprenticeships and traineeships for Australians have suffered years of neglect by employers. As even this ABC “Fact Check” conceded, up to 2019, apprenticeships declined by 18%, while traineeships plummeted by 60%. New incentive schemes brought in by the Morrison government boosted numbers — at least, until Covid hit.
At least McKellar is willing to admit that this is a problem of big business’ own making, but still dodges responsibility for fixing the mess they made.
“Businesses of all sizes, across every sector, right around the country, are being hamstrung by the most severe skill shortage in 33 years. A solution is desperately needed,” Mr McKellar said.
Mr McKellar warned increasing the migration intake was “no panacea”, with governments needing to rebuild Australia’s domestic skills base. ACCI’s pre-budget submission urges the government to remove the Skilling Australians Fund levy for temporary and permanent employer nominated visas, which range between $1200-$3000 per year for small business and $1800-$5000 for large businesses.
The Australian
So, in fact, they want to be rewarded for their laziness and greed?
Meanwhile, ordinary Australians, time and again, make it perfectly clear that they want the mass immigration Ponzi scheme to end. After all, it’s they who have to put up with choked freeways, ever-sprawling suburbs and collapsing infrastructure.
Even on a “downside scenario”, mass immigration is projected to blow Australia’s population to more than 29 million over the next decade.
This madness has to stop.