Australia will slash the number of foreign migrant workers it accepts by 14 percent to safeguard local jobs as the global economic crisis fuels rising unemployment, the government said yesterday.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans announced the first cut in 10 years to the number of skilled migrant visas issued by Australia after the government warned that the slowing economy could send joblessness soaring to seven percent.
“We’re going to cut [the program] from 133,500 to 115,000, so that’s about a 14 percent cut,” Evans told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
COMPETITION
“We don’t want people coming in who are going to compete with Australians for limited jobs,” Evans said, explaining that the country’s economic circumstances had been radically transformed by the world economic crisis.
The number of foreign skilled migrants will be cut by 18,500 for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, which starts in June, from a total number of 133,500 in 2008-2009.
The reduction in the permanent skilled migration program will bar entry to foreign bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters and electricians for the foreseeable future.
The government removed hairdressers and cooks from Australia’s list of critical skills shortages late last year, but since then the economy has slowed further.
The latest cuts will remove a swathe of other occupations, most of them linked to the building and manufacturing trades that have been badly hit by the slowing economy.
“That’s where we’ve seen a drop off in demand, some major redundancies,” Evans said, adding that further cuts may be made when the national budget is unveiled in May.
PRESSURE
The Australian government is under pressure to act against the rising tide of job losses after figures released last week showed the unemployment rate had risen to a four-year high of 5.2 percent.
Employers will still be able to bring in foreign trades people by sponsoring them under a special visa for temporary migrant workers, provided they can prove that the labor cannot be sourced in Australia.
Building industry bodies, the national opposition and trade unions all said the move was warranted given the deteriorating economic conditions that have impacted on growth and employment.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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