Immigration newsletter 10 Mar 2011

We remind you again that if you are in the UK and wish to apply for a Tier 1 General highly skilled Visa you only have a few weeks left. Independent Skilled immigration to the UK will in effect end on 5 April 2011.

A new study by a recruiting firm has come to the conclusion that the UK's immigration cap will harm businesses and create further labour shortages.

Specialist recruiting firm Poolia surveyed a number of businesses expected to be affected by the UK Government's permanent immigration cap that starts in April 2011. The findings would suggest that the cap will be bad for UK business, increasing costs and leading to more gaps in the labour market.

Certain scientists and people earning over £150,000 will be exempt from the UK's immigration cap that will take effect on 6 April 2011.

The exemption for scientists follows lobbying from the UK research industry; They felt that a cap on scientists would hurt UK Universities and British scientific research.

The UK's immigration cap will put a limit of 20,700 visas per year for skilled and highly skilled immigration. The visa allotment will be allocated monthly. In 6 April 2011, 4,500 visas will be made available with 1,500 being made available for each following month.

Businesses in Western Australia (WA) have recorded a sharp increase in the number of Dutch, Malaysian and Irish workers being sponsored to fill skilled job vacancies.

Close to 4000 skilled migrants were granted temporary 457 visas in WA in the second half of last year, an increase of more than 44 percent over the same period in 2009.

The Australian mining industry has had some good news recently; Recent reports suggest that the government may increase levels of skilled migration to Australia. As the Australian economy picks up the only way in which employers will be able to deal with expected labour shortages is by hiring overseas workers

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy (CME) of Western Australia -- where current and future natural resource based projects are likely to take place -- said that it was vital to hire foreign workers under skilled migration visas. There is insufficient local labour to meet their needs.

Canada is expected to update its points based skilled immigration scheme; There will be new English language requirements and higher points thresholds. If you think you may be affected by the changes, it may be best to apply now for skilled immigration to Canada.

Currently, there is no minimum score required under the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). This means that as long as you score at least 67 points overall, you will qualify. However, new rules that will go into effect shortly will create a minimum mandatory IELTS score.

India is pushing for a free-trade agreement provision with the European Union which would provide 50,000 extra skilled visas for Indian workers, according to the Business Standard. Unfortunately, the EU says that they are not able to negotiate on visas on behalf of individual EU member states.

The EU has stated that visas are a member-state issue, one which the 27-member bloc has little control over as a whole; therefore, Brussels cannot negotiate immigration matters under the free trade agreement.

However, a couple of proposed European Commission directives which are independent of the free trade agreement could facilitate India's desire for access to the European labour market.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is proposing an electronic registration system which businesses can use to file H-1B petitions. USCIS says the new system would save firms more than $23 million dollars over the next decade.

"The proposed electronic system would minimize administrative burdens and expenses related to the H-1B petition process including reducing the need for employers to submit petitions for which visas would not be available under the statutory visa cap," USCIS said in a statement.

You will next be able to apply for an H-1B visa from 1 April 2011 to start work in October 2011.