Skill Select – Expression of Interest (EOI) for Australian State Nominations – Invitation Results for July-September 2018

Australian State Nominations – Invitation Results

In the first week of January 2019, the Department of  Home Affairs (DoHA) has released the statistical analysis of the STATE AND TERRITORY NOMINATION results (Expressions of Interest – EOI) for the General Skilled Migration or “GSM” visas:

Skilled Nominated visa (subclass 190) and

Skilled Regional (Provisional) visa (subclass 489).

(Statistical analysis of the recent INDEPENDENT INVITATION ROUNDS is also available on our website – https://www.easymigrate.com/news/ )

EasyMigrate is one of Australia’s leading migration agents, based in Perth, Western Australia. Our Registered Migration Consultant Mr Cyrus Mistry (principal immigration agent) has reviewed these STATE AND TERRITORY NOMINATION results – commentary is given below

Broad Overview:

Recent news: Department of Immigration (now DoHA) has announced that from Financial Year 2018-2019 there will be only ONE ROUND OF SKILL SELECT INVITATIONS PER MONTH in the Independent subclass 189 program. But for STATE NOMINATIONS there is no “monthly round” – SC190 and SC489 applications progress as soon as states show that they are willing to “nominate” the applicant.

Recent news: From 1 July 2018 the “pass mark” has been increased from 60 to 65 points. New applicants can lodge their Expression Of Interest (EOI) with 65 points or more. Other applicants who submitted their EOI before 30 June 2018 with 60 points will continue to stay in the queue.

Summary:

Under the General Skilled Migration program, applicants can opt for “State Nomination” –

(a)      subclass 190 permanent residency

(b)      subclass 489 “Regional Nomination” which is a four-year temporary residency leading to permanent residency subclass 887 after meeting regional residency and regional employment conditions.

Australian State Governments have their own criteria and their own “State-wise Occupation Lists”. These are based on the need and the job opportunities available in that occupation, in that state. The program allows nominated skilled workers to live and work in Australia as long-term permanent residents.

The pass mark under the Australian “points test” for state nominated migration to Australia is 65 points.
Obtaining a subclass 190 invitation from a state government gives an additional 5 points to the applicant.
Obtaining a subclass 489 invitation from a state government gives an additional 10 points to the applicant.

The number of intending migrants who received nominations from State and Territory Governments in September 2018 is shown in the table below:

As you can see, a total of 1,689 invitations were issued in SC190 and SC489 programs in September 2018. This translates to approximately 20,000-22,000 invitations per year (projected July-2018 to June-2019 financial year).

Department of Immigration (DOHA) has also released the statistics for the three months July-2018 to Sept-2018.

The “NSW Department of Industry” controls state-nominated migration to New South Wales (NSW), i.e. Sydney and surrounding regional areas. Skilled migration to NSW got the maximum number of invitations granted in these three months, at about 1,500.

Next in line: The “Victorian Government – Live in Melbourne” department controls state-nominated migration to the state of Victoria (VIC), i.e. Melbourne and surrounding regional areas. Skilled migration to Victoria resulted in about 1,250 invitations in those three months. Interestingly, most of their state-nominations seem to be subclass 190 (1,241 in three months) compared to subclass 489 (10 in three months).

Third place:  The “Immigration South Australia” department controls state-nominated migration to the South Australia (SA), i.e. Adelaide and surrounding regional areas. Skilled migration to South Australia resulted in about 1,240 invitations in those three months. South Australia Skilled Migration office seems to issue more SC489 invitations (957 in three months) compared to SC190 (282 in three months).

In fourth place: The “BSMQ – Business and Skilled Migration Queensland” department controls state-nominated migration to Queensland (QLD), i.e. Brisbane and surrounding regional areas.  Skilled migration to Queensland resulted in about 700 invitations in those three months – more SC190, less SC489.

Three other States have smaller but still substantial programs:
Australian Capital Territory (ACT) – Canberra – controlled by “Canberra Create Your Future.”
Northern Territory (NT) – Darwin – controlled by “Migration NT.”
Tasmania (TAS) – Hobart – controlled by “Migration Tasmania.”

In the last place: Western Australia (Perth and surrounding regional areas). This is controlled by “Skilled Migration Western Australia”, under the state government’s Department of Training & Workforce Development.  A total number of invitations in three months was 5 (yes, five!). Shame!

FORECAST:
The state-nominated programs are well entrenched. To change anything requires quite a lot of “negotiations” and legislative amendments. Therefore I expect that the state-nomination programs (Subclass 190 and subclass 489) will continue in its present form for some time. These are unlikely to be “tinkered” by changes to Federal Government politics.
However, they do suffer from state-level changes in government and “populist” sentiments. This became painfully evident when the new state government was elected in March 2017 and rules were changed within the next 14 days!

 I hope you find this statistical-analysis useful.
Just to let you know, we have the same in-depth analysis was done for the subclass 189 Independent visa and the SC489 Family-Sponsored visa invitation-rounds by the Australian Dept of Immigration (now called Department of Home Affairs (DOHA).

On our EasyMigrate website, we have the statistics. My ongoing analysis for the  October 2017 invitations; the November 2017 invitation round and the December 2017 round are available. January 2018 round, February 2018 round, March 2018 round, April 2018 round, May 2018 Round, the two x June 2018 rounds, the 11th July 2018, 11^th August 2018   the 11 September 2018 and the October 2018 invitation rounds are also available on our website. I estimate that the Nov 2017 to June 2018 rounds were only about 30-40% of the usual monthly track-record before October 2017, but from July 2018 the invitations are on par with the good months up to September 2017 in previous years, and the latest round has EXCEEDED our expectations by almost doubling the invitations in SkillSelect.

The table below (published by the Department of Immigration – now renamed Department of Home Affairs – DoHA) shows the number of STATE AND TERRITORY NOMINATIONS issued between July 2018 and September 2018. Link to their website is: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/working-in-australia/skillselect/invitation-rounds

State and Territory nominations

State and Territory nominations 2018-19 program year

Nominations by State and Territory Governments – September 2018

The number of intending migrants who received nominations from State and Territory Governments in September 2018 is shown in the table below:

Nominations by State and Territory Governments – 2018-19 total activity

The number of intending migrants who received nominations from State and Territory Governments from 1 July 2018 to the end of September 2018 is shown in the following table: