3-Monthly 21 April 2021 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).
4. State invitations for Business Owners and Investors: subclass 188 Business Innovation and Investment.
5. State invitations for Business Owners and Investors: subclass 132 Business Talent (permanent visas).

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

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Quarterly Skill Select Tables : Invitations issued on 21 April 2021

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 recent months:

Invitations issued for State Nominated SC190 and Regional State-nominated SC491 (March 2021 results have been published):

Please note that as from December 2020 the Department of Immigration (DoHA) is only issuing “invitations” on a quarterly basis.

There were 500 invitations published for this April 2021 invitation round for SC189 applicants, with a cut-off date of July 2019 and a minimum points-score of 80 points. The previous invitation round (January 2021) had 200 invitations for Skilled Independent (SC189) at 65 points with a cut-off date April 2020.

The previous cut-off for Skilled Regional Family Sponsored (SC491) was 65 points, cut-off date November 2020 in previous invitation round (January 2021). This time (April 2021 round) – 160 SC491 Family Sponsored applicants were invited, starting at 65 points with cut-off date March-2021.

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. The new October 2020 Budget has placed restrictions / quotas on various visa classes. This has reduced the available quota for invitations.

For pro-rata Occupations:

For SC189 Independent Visa: Accountants, Auditors, Company Secretaries and Corporate Treasurers were not invited at all.

For SC491 Family-sponsored Visa: Accountants, Auditors, Company Secretaries and Corporate Treasurers were not invited at all.

For SC189 Independent Visa: Electronics Engineers were not invited at all.

For SC491 Family-sponsored Visa: Electronics Engineers were not invited at all.

For SC189 Independent Visa: Industrial, Mechanical and Production Engineers were invited at 80 points, with cut-off date July 2019.

For SC491 Family-sponsored Visa: Industrial, Mechanical and Production Engineers were not invited at all.

For SC189 Independent Visa: Other Engineering Professionals were invited at 90 points with cut-off date May 2020.

For SC491 Family-sponsored Visa: Other Engineering Professionals  were invited at 70 points with cut-off date Sept 2020.

For SC189 Independent Visa: ICT Business and System Analysts, Software and Application Programmers, Computer Network Professionals were not invited at all.

For SC491 Family-sponsored Visa: : ICT Business and System Analysts, Software and Application Programmers, Computer Network Professionals 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 at 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. In this invitation round, they have not been invited at all (SC189 / SC491).

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. April 2020,  May 2020 and June 2020 rounds were also very low.

The total number of invitations for the financial year (July 2019 to June 2020) was 7,780 for SC189 Independent and 1,480 for SC491 Family-Sponsored.

Current Program year 2020-2021: July 2020 had 600 invitations.  August 2020 had 200 invitations. Sept 2020) was better than the previous –  at 350 invitations for SC189 and 150 invitations for SC491 Family Sponsored (total 500 invitations). Then the Dept of Home Affairs changed their invitation rounds to “quarterly” instead of monthly. The previous quarterly invitation (January 2021) included 200 invitations for SC189 and 163 invitations for SC491 Family Sponsored visas giving a total of 363 invitations. Compared to this, the current quarterly round (21 April 2021) has 500 invitations for SC189 and 160 invitations for SC491 Family Sponsored (total 660 invitations)

Cyrus Mistry Comments

Invitation rounds for Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189) and Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (subclass 491) – Family Sponsored visas are now anticipated to be run each quarter (three monthly). Next round is expected in July 2021. Dates for the rounds are subject to change.

Invitation numbers in each round may vary depending on the number of applications being processed by the Department.

Note: State or territory government nominations for Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (subclass 491) will not be impacted by the departmental invitation rounds.

The Government is closely monitoring migration and visa settings to ensure they are consistent with public health measures, are flexible and do not displace job opportunities for Australians, so that Australia can effectively respond to the immediate and subsequent impacts of COVID-19. As such, targeted invitation rounds have occurred since May 2020.

Because of the COVID19 pandemic, the current rounds of invitations have been drastically cut.

Recent developments around the word regarding the Coronavirus is having an effect on Dept of Immigration decision-makers. 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. But the number of invitations issued in recent rounds is poor.

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 50 points “independently” plus the 15 points from their family-sponsor (if invitations are starting at 65 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.