SkillSelect and State-Nomination invitation round – 11 April 2020

11 April 2020 Skill Select Round and State Nomination Results

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SkillSelect EOI Invitation Round Results plus State-Nominated Invitation results are for:

1.  Skill Select EOI Invitation Round is for people who lodged an Expression of Interest (EOI)
2. The two GSM visa subclasses are 189 (Skilled Independent) (Australian Permanent visa) and subclass 491 (Skilled Family Sponsored) (Australian Provisional visa).
3. The two State-nominated visa subclasses are 190 (Skilled State-nominated) (Australian Permanent visa) and subclass 491 (Skilled State Nominated Regional) (Australian Provisional visa).

EasyMigrate is a leading Australian migration agency, based in Perth, Australia. Mr Cyrus Mistry (founder of EasyMigrate) has reviewed SkillSelect EOI Invitation Round Results – see his comments below.

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Skill Select Tables

Tables:

For Non-Pro rata occupations the Department of Immigration has announced points cut-off as per the table below:

For Pro-rata occupations the Department of Immigration has announced points cut-off as per the table below:

Invitations issued during the last 12 months:

Invitations issued for State Nominated SC190 and Regional State-nominated SC491 (March 2020 results have been published):

For SC189 Independent:

• No invitations went to applicants with 90 points or less
• 17 invitations went to applicants with 95 points
• 15 invitations went to applicants with 100 points
• 12 invitations went to applicants with 105 points
• No invitations went to applicants with 110 points or more.

For SC491-Family Sponsored:

• No invitations went to applicants with 90 points or less
• 27 invitations went to applicants with 95 points
• 9 invitations went to applicants with 100 points
• 13 invitations went to applicants with 105 points
• No invitations went to applicants with 110 points or more.

There were no invitations to persons with 90 points or less (but historically, even at 70 points, 884 persons were invited in March 2019, 848 invited in Jan 2019 and 32 invited in February 2019).

Occupations Analysis

The cut-off for Skilled Independent (SC189) was 95 points, cut-off date 25-03-2020.

The previous cut-off for Skilled Regional Family Sponsored (SC491) was 85 points, cut-off date 05-02-2020 in previous invitation rounds and 300 persons were invited. But this time only 50 SC491 Family Sponsored applicants were invited, starting at 95 points with cut-off date 10-04-2020.

The “boom” months were between September 2018 and November 2018 at 4,350 invitations per month.

In the October 2018 invitation round, 70-point holders were also invited for SC189, but not anymore. This is due to a combination of increased numbers of applications received by the Department of Immigration and reduced quota for invitations.

For pro-rata Occupations:

For Accountants, the SC189 invitation threshold increased to 100 points (It had come down to 80 points in January 2019 and 90 points in March 2020). The cut-off date is published as 25-03-2020, which means that all “Accountant” applicants with 100 points who lodged before 25-03-2020 got invited. SC491 Family-Sponsored applicants (Accountants, Auditors, Company Secretaries and Corporate Treasurers) were not invited at all.

For the Auditors, Company Secretaries and Corporate Treasurers occupations, the cut-off points-score for SC189 has stayed at 95, and the cut-off date is now 16-01-2020. SC491 Family-Sponsored applicants were not invited at all.

Electronics Engineers did not get invited for SC189 in the September 2019 or October 2019.  In December 2019 they had been invited at 95 points or more, cut-off date was 04-06-2019. Electronics Engineers have been invited 95 points, cut-off date is 20-03-2020. SC491 Family-Sponsored applicants were invited for Electronic Engineer occupation at 95 points, cut-off date 18-03-2020.

Historical Analysis

The number of monthly invitations used to hover around the “two thousand-plus” around 2017 good months.  They went lower between November 2017 to June 2018 at about 305 “SkillSelect” invitations per fortnight for the EOI applicants! 

From July 2018 the invitations were on par with the good months in previous year (2017).

The two rounds of October 2018 and November 2018 EXCEEDED our expectations at 4,340 invitations.  

But the December 2018 round and January 2019  halved to 2,500 invitations. February 2019,  March 2019  were FURTHER REDUCED to 1,500 invitations, and April 2019 plus May 2019 plus June 2019 invitations were a disappointing 100 invitations only. 

July 2019 invitations had bounced back to 1,000 invitations. But August 2019 and September 2019 had fallen back to just 100 invitations! October 2019 invitations looked much better at 1,500 invitations. But November 2019 round was very poor at 250 invitations. The December 2019 was not much better – 250 invitations for SC189 and 200 invitations for SC491-Family-Sponsored. The January 2020 and February 2020 invitations were better with 1,000 SC190 invitations and 300 to 500 SC491-Family-Sponsored invitations. The March 2020 round was good at 1,750 invitations for SC189 and 300 invitations for SC491.

The current round under review (11 April 2020) was terrible –  at 50 invitations for SC189 and 50 invitations for SC491 Family Sponsored.

The total number of invitations for the financial year (July 2018 to June 2019) was 22,920.

Based on July 2018,  August 2018, September 2018,  October 2018, November 2018,  December 2018  January 2019  February 2019 March 2019, April 2019 and May 2019 figures, I had forecast in my previous articles that the total number of EOI applicants invited for the financial year July 2018 to June 2019 would be  22,820 – my estimate was very close because the FINAL COUNT SkillSelect Invitation Round Results was 22,920!

Cyrus Mistry Comments

Because of the COVID19 pandemic, the current round of invitations has been drastically cut.

Recent developments around the word regarding the Coronavirus is likely to have some effect on Dept of Immigration managers. As the “migration program” especially in the GSM and State-Nominated subclasses are “long term” processes taking 12-24 months to be finalised, we hope that the DoHA management keeps these subclasses ongoing and unaffected.

The effect of “re-invitation” continues to plague the SkillSelect invitations program. In my previous articles, I had mentioned about the impact of “re-invitation”. Many applicants have changed to other countries or changed their plans but have not removed their Expressions of Interest (EOI). So they get invited, but they do not apply within the next 60 days. These applicants usually get “re-invited” as per the Dept of Immigration rules one more time! I estimate this figure to be as high as 30-40% in many occupations. This severely affects the program. For example, out of the 1,000-odd invitations in January 2020 only about 600-800 may take it up, 200-400 “invites” are wasted! This is something that the Department of Home Affairs has not been able to tackle yet.

Please keep in mind that for the SC491 FAMILY-SPONSORED visa, the applicant needs to have scored 80 points “independently” plus the 15 points from their family-sponsor (if invitations are starting at 95 points). From 16 November 2019 onwards the new Subclass 491 Regional Family-Sponsored visa has come into effect, replacing the SC489 family-Sponsored.

Our EasyMigrate website has statistics for previous SkillSelect Invitation Round Results. My ongoing analysis commencing October 2017 invitation round and right up to the most recent invitation rounds are all available on our website.