Health care workers in demand in Australia - Immigrate under general skilled migration

Health care and social assistance workers are increasingly needed in Australia. The health care industry is one of Australia's largest industries and employs approximately 1.2 million people, accounting for around 11 percent of the total Australian workforce.

The health care and social assistance industry has a large number of older workers, with nearly half of its workforce aged 45 years or older. This means many of these workers are likely to retire in the next decade or two, leaving Australia needing even more workers to fill labour shortages. The strong employment growth of recent years is also expected to continue resulting in even more labour shortages.

Many health care and social assistance workers are highly educated, with 77 percent of workers holding a post-school qualification compared to 61 percent for the Australian workforce as a whole. According to statistics, 25 percent of care workers in 2007 were immigrants. It is estimated that due to an aging workforce in this industry, the skill shortages will continue to grow and Australia will continue to need more health care workers.

The majority of vacancies in the health care and social assistance industry workforce are for nurses and doctors. Also community and personal service workers such as carers and nursing support workers are very much needed in the health care industry.

If you are interested in Australian immigration you may wish to consider the General Skilled Migration (GSM) Program. You will need to meet the basic requirements for GSM, pass the Australian immigration Points Test and pass an occupation skills assessment to qualify for an Australian visa.

GSM is for professionals and other skilled migrants who have skills in particular occupations required in Australia and who are not sponsored by an employer. Australian Immigration has a Skilled Occupation List (SOL); In order to qualify for skilled migration to Australia, you must nominate an occupation from the SOL. Occupations in the health care and social assistance workers include: registered nurses, and welfare centre managers, and general medical practitioners.

If you would like to apply for an Australian visa, WorkPermit.com can help. WorkPermit.com is a specialist visa consultancy with over twenty years of experience dealing with visa applications. We can help with a wide range of visa applications to your country of choice. Please feel free to contact us for further details.