Immigrants and the Professions

Abstract

Migrants have made a major contribution to Australia's professionally qualified workforce. Those arriving pre-1980 and in the early 1980s have largely been able to convert their qualifications into professional level employment. However, later arriving migrants have been far less successful. The extent to which migrants, holding professional qualifications, have been able to put these qualifications to productive use in Australia has long been a contentious issue. This article provides some answers by drawing on a larger study entitled Immigrants and the professions in Australia. The study was published in December 1996 by the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University using 1991 Census data. The larger study details the workforce situation of professionally-qualified migrants by selected country of birth for major professions. This summary article focuses on the scale of movement of migrant professionals to Australia and their overall progress in the Australian labour market, relative to Australia-born professionals. The article concludes that the research raises questions about current Australian immigration and settlement policies. The first relates to the appropriateness of maintaining a skill migration policy which fails to take account of the level of demand in Australia with particular professions. The second question relates to the relative employment outcomes by recently-arrived English speaking background (ESB), main English speaking country (MESC) and non-English speaking background (NESB) professionals. The tighter professional labour markets coupled with restrictions on the provision of English language training will continue to make it difficult for NESB professionals.