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Western Australia's Chamber of Minerals and Energy (CME) has stated that more skilled migration is needed to provide the skilled labour required in the resources sector.
Increased investment is driving demand for foreign workers. It is expected that just in Western Australia alone you will seen investments of about AUD $300 billion.
CME CEO Reg Howard-Smith said that recent research suggests that Western Australia will require between 30,000 and 34,000 new workers in the next year to year and a half.
"To provide some context, the total resources sector workforce is currently more than 85,000 direct employees, when only five years ago this figure was 44,000 people," Howard-Smith said.
"If you consider that for every one direct employee, there could be up to four indirect employees, you get a sense of the challenge facing the sector and the state," he added.
Howard-Smith, CME has suggested three ways in which to deal with the skills shortages: ensuring a trained workforce is developed and maintained, increasing participation of under-represented groups (such as women and indigenous peoples) and ensuring access to skilled migrants.
Skilled migrants can come to Australia through various routes, including employer-sponsored temporary migration and independent skilled migration, of which the latter does not require a specific job offer. Many of these schemes grant you permanent residence; You will then be able to live and work in Australia on a permanent basis.
For more information on immigrating to Australia as a skilled worker, see our Australian immigration section.
