Melbourne:
Unfazed by the attacks on Indian students Down Under, over 20,000 Indians have migrated under Australia's permanent skilled visa category beating Chinese who stood at over 13,000 during 2008-09.
According to official figures released on Monday, overseas workers who were sponsored by employers comprised 33 per cent of the 2008-09 skill stream compared to 22 per cent in 2007-08 and 17 per cent in 2006-07.
Across all permanent skilled visa categories, top three occupations for successful applicants were accountancy (6,238), computing professionals (3,879) and registered nurses (3,355) and top three nations under the skill stream were the United Kingdom (23,178), India (20,105) and China (13,927).
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Evans said that changes introduced in January including the Critical Skills List (CSL) of high value occupations and prioritising employer-sponsored or state/territory-sponsored skilled migration visa grants were having a significant impact.
"Australia's migration programme is better targeting the needs of Australian employers who are still experiencing skill shortages," Evans said.
"A properly targeted migration programme will ensure we have the right sized and appropriately skilled labour force to meet Australia's needs now and into the future as our economy recovers and grows," he said.
Australia's migration programme is more effectively meeting the needs of employers with a 60 per cent increase in the number of employer-sponsored skilled migrants to Australia in 2008-09 compared to the previous year.
The Report on Migration Programme 2008-09 revealed that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government targeted approach to overseas workers is helping to fill critical skills gaps in the healthcare, engineering, financial services and IT sectors.
The government cut the 2008-09 permanent skilled migration intake in March 2009 by 14 per cent from 133,500 to 115,000 and reduced planning levels for the permanent skilled migrant intake in the overall 2009-10 migration programme to 108,100 places.
"This is in direct response to the economic slowdown and represents an overall drop of almost 20 per cent on previous planning levels," Evans said, adding 'The migration intake in the coming year reflects the economic conditions while ensuring employers can gain access to skilled professionals in industries still experiencing skills shortages such as healthcare and engineering.
"The reduction is being achieved through a cutback in places in independent skilled migration rather than in the high-demand employer-sponsored category or in areas in which Australia has critical skills shortages."
The total migration programme outcome for 2008-09 was 171,318 places. The 2008-09 skill stream outcome of 114,777 places accounted for 67 per cent of the total programme.
The 2008-09 family streams also made a significant contribution to Australia's society, with a total outcome of 56,366 places or 33 per cent of the total migration programme.
Of these, almost 75 per cent were the spouses, fiances or interdependent partners of Australian citizens and permanent residents. The top three countries of citizenship under the family stream were China (7,901), the UK (7,360) and India (4,936).
Meanwhile, The Age quoted Evans as saying that cabinet had approved the development of a five to 10-year plan that would consider the types of migrants that Australia needed.
Calling for a more rational immigration debate, Evans said, "The annual figure this year (for skilled permanent migration) was, say, 115,000, but more than 500,000 came into the country. They came in as students, temporary workers, working holidaymakers but the public still focuses on the 115,000 as if it's got anything to do with reality and my attempts to have a more sophisticated debate about this have totally failed."
Decisions about who came to Australia would be increasingly left to employers although, conversely, Australia would also be competing for the most highly skilled migrants.
He said Australia's immigration policy would remain non-discriminatory and its Muslim community posed no fundamental threat - despite the arrest of five men on terror charges, three from Somalia and two from Lebanon.