Western Australia’s Training and Workforce Development Minister, Peter Collier, announced today that the Western Australian Government has signed a formal agreement with the Federal Government, enacting an official State Migration Plan for the State. The agreement aims to identify, target and sponsor skilled migrants in high demand occupations to Western Australia over the next four years.

In addressing the existing and expected future labor needs of Western Australia, Minister Peter Collier pointed to an anticipated construction ‘boom’ in the State, with $220 billion worth of major projects in the pipeline to be completed over the coming years, including the Ord River Expansion and the Oakajee port and rail project.

Mr Collier noted that studies forecast there would be a gap of about 150,000 workers in WA in the next seven years, indicating that a robust skilled migration program was crucial for the State. He said that attracting overseas workers to WA would be essential to help ease the State's skills shortage and that skilled migrants would be able to fill vacancies which could not be filled by local workers.

Mr Collier said that WA would not be able to maintain its growth without an increase in overseas workers, and that the point of the new State Migration Plan agreement was “…to ensure that we do have a much more targeted approach to skilled migration and (to) ensure that we do open our doors to the international community that can work in areas of a special need in Western Australia."

Western Australia’s State Migration Plan will allow the State to sponsor 6000 visa applications for the 2010 program year, and it is intended that immigration applicants to Western Australia will be approved based on particular areas of skill required for the State’s current and anticipated labor needs.

The Western Australian Department of Training and Workforce Development has released the Western Australian Skilled Migration Occupation List (WASMOL), which has been developed as the central element of the Western Australia State Migration Plan to meet the State’s labor market needs.

The WA State Migration Plan list identifies a number of particular occupations that Western Australia will consider for State sponsorship and confirms that the State of WA will also consider Nominations for State Sponsorship in respect of occupations which are not on the list through the Off-List Nomination process.  The Western Australian Government have also detailed substantial work experience and English requirements to obtain WA State Sponsorship even where an occupation is included on the State Migration Plan eligibility list.

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