The Two-Step Australian Immigration Policy and its Impact on Immigrant Employment Outcomes

Robert Gregory

No 8061, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Three decades ago most immigrants to Australia with work entitlements came as permanent settlers. Today the annual allocation of temporary visas, with work entitlements, outnumbers permanent settler visas by a ratio of three to one. The new environment, with so many temporary visa holders, has led to a two-step immigration policy whereby an increasing proportion of immigrants come first as a temporary immigrant, to work or study, and then seek to move to permanent status. Around one half of permanent visas are allocated on-shore to those who hold temporary visas with work rights. The labour market implications of this new two-step system are substantial. Immigrants from non-English speaking countries (NES), are affected most. In their early years in Australia, they have substantially reduced full-time employment and substantially increased part-time employment, usually while attending an education institution. Three years after arrival one third of NES immigrants are now employed part-time which, rather than unemployment, is becoming their principal pathway to full-time labour market integration. Surprisingly, little has changed for immigrants from English speaking countries (ES).

Keywords: immigrant part-time employment; fee paying foreign students; temporary employment visas; labour market integration; immigrants; employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J15 J61 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2014-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ger, nep-lab and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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