SkillSelect and State-Nomination invitation round – 13 March 2020

13 March 2020 Skill Select Round and State Nomination Results

FREE Pre-Assessment

FREE 10 minute telephone Pre-Assessment…

Not quite sure if it is worth booking in for a detailed (paid) assessment? Or do you simply prefer to deal with a real person?

Book in for a FREE 10 minute telephone Pre-Assessment with one of our qualified and experienced Migration Consultants who can quickly determine if you may have suitable visa options or pathways worth exploring further in a detailed (paid) Consultation.

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.

Skill Select & Migration News

 

• VETASSESS – COVID-19 IMMIGRATION UPDATES
• Matters Relating to Western Australia’s Economic Relationship with Republic of India
• Novel Coronavirus Information for Visa Holders 
• Visa conditions relaxed for backpackers in Australia
• WA – Graduate Occupation list Update

Tables:

Visa subclass	Number of invitations issued
Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189)	1,750
Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (subclass 491)  Family Sponsored	300

 

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

 

Visa subclass	Minimum points score	All EOIs submitted prior to (cut-off)
Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189)	90	29/01/2020  6:37pm
Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (subclass 491)  Family Sponsored)	85	05/02/2020  3:56am

 

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

 

Subclass	ANZSCO Group	Description	Minimum points score	All EOIs submitted prior to (cut-off)
189	2211	Accountants	95	19/06/2019 11:45pm
189	2212	Auditors, Company Secretaries and Corporate Treasurers	95	31/01/2020 07:12pm
189	2334	Electronics Engineer	90	29/01/2020 04:49pm
491	2334	Electronics Engineer	85	15/01/2020 1:58pm
189	2335	Industrial, Mechanical and Production Engineers	90	18/11/2019 1:36pm
189	2339	Other Engineering Professionals	90	08/12/2019 3:13am
189	2611	ICT Business and System Analysts	90	07/01/2020 3:08pm
189	2613	Software and Applications Programmers	90	29/01/2020 6:37pm
491	2613	Software and Applications Programmers	85	04/02/2020 1:28pm
189	2631	Computer Network Professionals	90	29/01/2020 1:19pm
491	2631	Computer Network Professionals	90	12/03/2020 10:39am

 

Invitations issued during last 12 months:

Month		Number of Invitations – Subclass 189 Independent		Number of Invitations – Subclass 491 Family-sponsored
March 2019		1490		Old SC489 – 10
April 2019		100		Old SC489 – 10
May 2019		100		Old SC489 – 10
June 2019		100		Old SC489 – 10
July 2019		1000		Old SC489 – 100
Aug 2019		100		Old SC489 – 100
Sept 2019		100		Old SC489 – 100
Oct 2019		1500		0
Nov 2019		250		0
Dec 2019		250		200
Jan 2020		1000		300
Feb 2020		1000		500
March 2020		1750		300

 

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

Month		Number of Invitations – Subclass 190 State-nom		Number of Invitations – Subclass 491 State-nom
ACT (Canberra)		86		57
NSW		147		0
Northern Territory		78		24
Queensland

Hints & Tips

Apply for state-nominations also, in parallel. We have many clients who were waiting for more than a year for an invitation through SkillSelect EOI Invitation Round Results. For these clients we complete a file-review and recommend a suitable state-nomination option. Many of them get invited for permanent residency WITHIN 2 to 3 MONTHS!

You can contact us for an “initial consultancy”, and we can review your case (link for online booking etc.) 

Summary

Next round is 11 April 2020. Commentary regarding that Skill Select invitation round will be published by EasyMigrate as soon as those statistics are made available by the Department of Immigration (usually one month later).

The SkillSelect EOI Invitation Round Results for September 2019  was terrible  – 100 invitations instead of 1,000 invitations in July 2019. The 11 October 2019 was much better – with 1,500 invitations! Then, the SkillSelect EOI Invitation Round Results for 11 November 2019 and 11 December 2019 rounds were very low and disappointing – only 250 invitations! 10 January 2020 and February 2020 invitations were better at 1000 invitations.

The latest SkillSelect EOI Invitation Round Result (13 March 2020) is an improvement – 1750 invitations for subclass 189 independent applicants. But only 300 invitations have been issued for the new SC491 family-sponsored applicants, compared to 500 last month.

• 1,750 applicants for SC189 Independent with 90 points got invited (applied before 29-01-2020)
• 300 applicants for SC489 Family Sponsored with 85 points got invited (applied before 05-02-2020)

 

In my opinion this is the same as the previous pre-November 2019 rule changes score level “invitation at 80-85 points” for subclass 189. This is because applicants now get 5 or 10 more points for spouse if spouse is skilled and/or speaks good English, if applicants DO NOT have a spouse (10 points), etc. Similarly, applicants for SC491 Family Sponsored also get 15 more points from their regionally-located family.

 

For SC189 Independent:

• 1,311 invitations went to applicants with 90 points
• 341 invitations went to applicants with 95 points
• 67 invitations went to applicants with 100 points
• 20 invitations went to applicants with 105 points
• Approx 14 invitations went to applicants with 110 points or more.

For SC491-Family Sponsored:

• 45 invitations went to applicants with 85 points
• 131 invitations went to applicants with 90 points
• 71 invitations went to applicants with 95 points
• 44 invitations went to applicants with 100 points
• Approx 6 invitations went to applicants with 105 points or more.

There were no invitations to persons with 80 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 90 points, cut-off date 29-01-2020.

The previous cut-off for Skilled Regional Family Sponsored (SC491) was 85 points, cut-off date 08-01-2020 in previous invitation rounds. But this time 300 SC491 Family Sponsored applicants were invited, starting at 85 points with cut-off date 05-02-2020.

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 invitation threshold stayed steady at 95 points (It had come down to 80 points in January 2019). The cut-off date is published as 19-06-2019, which means that all “Accountant” applicants with 95 points who lodged before 19-06-2019 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 has stayed at 95, and the cut-off date is now 13-01-2020. 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. Similar to the last round, Electronics Engineers have been invited a 90 points, cut-off date is 29-01-2020. SC491 Family Sponsored applicants were invited for Electronic Engineer occupation at 85 points, cut-off date 15-01-2020.

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 current round under review (13 March 2020) was much better at 1750 invitations for SC189 but 300 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:

Recent developments around the word regarding the Coronavirus is likely tyo 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 auaffected.

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 70 points “independently” plus the 15 points from their family-sponsor (if invitations are starting at 85 points). From 16 November 2019 onwards the new Subclass 491 Regional Family-Sponsored visa has come into effect, replacing the SC489.

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. 

Department of Home Affairs Invitations Round Results

The results in the next section have been taken from the Department of Home Affairs website: 

Invitations issued on 13 March 2020

The following information has been taken from the Department of Home Affairs website. The table below shows the number of invitations issued in the SkillSelect invitation round on 13 March 2020.

During 2019-20 program year the following numbers of invitations have been issued:

13 March 2020 results

The following graph shows the points for clients who were invited to apply in the 13 March 2020 round.

Invitation process and cut offs

The highest ranked clients by points score are invited to apply for the relevant visa. For clients who have equal points scores, the time at which they reached their points score for that subclass (referred to as the date of effect) determines their order of invitation. Expressions of Interest with earlier dates of effect are invited before later dates.

Point scores and the dates of effect cut off for the pro rata occupations in the 13 March 2020 invitation round.

Due to high levels of demand, and in keeping with previous years, the below occupation groups will be subject to pro rata arrangements to ensure availability of invitations across the program year.

SkillSelect first allocates available places to Skilled – Independent visas (subclass 189) and then the remaining to Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) visa (subclass 491) – Family Sponsored . If all places are taken up by subclass 189 visas then there will be no invitations issued for subclass 491 visas in these occupations.