Key Points
- The H-1B Visa program is a cornerstone of the workforce of the United States, giving 85,000 employees access every year.
- In the past five years, important players in the technical industry of Australia have called for the government for a sector boost.
- Experts said that the US decision offered a “huge” opportunity for Australia to gain access to high -level talent.
The recent order from President Donald Trump to increase the country for competent migrant visa applications up to US $ 100,000 ($ 151,000) has shaken the technical industry, visa holders and hopeful applicants.
The increase in costs has been set to significantly reduce the number of future-trained employee applications of American companies, especially for tech giants such as Amazon, Meta and Google, which send most of H-1B visa requests.
The H-1B Visa program is a cornerstone of the skilled workforce of the US, with 85,000 permits granted every year, largely in technology.
In his decision of September 21, the White House said that the visa, which was intended to bring competent temporary employees to the US, “deliberately exploited” to replace American employees.
Later it said that the reimbursement would be a one -off for new visa applicants and would not apply to applications submitted before 21 September.
In Australia, shortages of imminent skills and a flagging technical sector have led to growing calls for a revision of the country’s migration program.
While Trump clamps on foreign talent and closes the door to nearly 100,000 employees a year, can Australia open his?
A ‘opportunity’ for the technical sector
In the past five years, important players in the technical industry of Australia have called for the government for a sector boost.
In August 2022, the federal government announced that it would be committed to a target of 1.2 million technically related jobs by 2030.
The goal, informed by consultation with technical industrial groups, including the Tech Council of Australia, would require more than 500,000 employees to become a member of the recruitment pool.
In December 2024, the federal government added a specialized visa current for much sought after skills to replace the first Temporary skills visa. The “modernized” competent occupation list contained more than 450 roles, especially in construction, cyber protection, agriculture and health.
Former deputy secretary of the Immigration Department, Abul RIZVI, SBS News said that the US decision offered a “huge” opportunity for Australia to gain access to high -level talent.
“It really comes down to the preparedness of the Australian industry and Australian employers to recruit these people. If they actively go out and recruit these people, the visa categories are there to bring people to Australia very quickly to enable them to work in Australia quickly. And find a path towards permanent residents and citizenship.
“The key will be whether Australian employers want to sponsor these people.”
In 2024, the largest cohort consisted of migrant appointments from temporary students, consisting of 207,000 of a total of 446,000 in the twelve months to June 2024.
Some of Australia’s largest technology companies agree that the announcement of Trump offers a chance for Australia, but they emphasize that policy and visa changes must be made to seduce skilled visa applicants.
Chief Financial Officer of Australian Business Management Software Company Deputy, Emma Seymour, said that Australia would be a “top choice” for competent migrating employees if changes were made.
These include “Fast visa approvals, recognition of qualifications, partner working rights and a transparent route to permanent stay”.
“Australia is in a unique time zone, bridges the US and Asia, with universities of world class and a trusted regulatory environment,” she said.
“If we combine that with targeted skilled migration, we can scales competing worldwide here, especially in areas such as HR and Workplace Tech and AI applications for Real-World industries.”
Seymour said that the representative ‘firsthand’ had seen how the right engineering, data and product talent all contribute to productivity and revenue growth.
“Technology is now the third largest industry in Australia, and with AI who transforms every sector of the economy, the chance is greater than ever … We just have to move fast enough to capture the full chance for us.”
‘I don’t think we will be the new Silicon Valley’
But senior migration policy teacher at the University of Sydney, Anna Boucher, wondered if H-1B candidates, who could “go somewhere in the world”, would choose Australia as their destination.
“We don’t have such a big intake in our skilled immigration program. And I think even more importantly, we are not really seen as a worldwide technical center,” she said.
She said it was also about having enough infrastructure to support opportunities.
“Whether we have that pipeline to suddenly accept all these super talented former H-1B visa holders, I don’t know for sure. I don’t think it’s just an immigration problem. There is perhaps a capacity, but we just don’t have a visa-oriented visa in Australia.”
Boucher said that findings from a study from 2019 on migrant interests and motivations discovered that Australia had some draw cards for potential skilled employees outside the visa system, including that the weather was less expensive and had good weather compared to the US.
“I mean, they sound ridiculous, but these are the kind of things, based on my studies in which migrants are interested,” she said.
“We have good weather, we have pretty good schools.”
She said since 2019 that things have shifted, which means that the democracy of Australia itself may have become a tempting factor.
“Perhaps that security has become important because there are fewer democracies in the world,” she said.
“These are things that motivate migrants, but the US has always been such a center of migration that it would not surprise me if Big Tech just takes the hit, because for them the benefits of this skilled work outweigh the price.
“Undoubtedly, this prize has been chosen for a reason, it is what the Trump government believes that they can get away.
“I don’t think we’ll be the new Silicon Valley.”
Issues for migrants
Yaser Naseri guides migrants and refugee workers who struggle to find work that corresponds to their skills in Australia.
He told SBS News that when he arrived in the country, his qualification in industrial electricity was invalid, and even after skilling at the university, he found it difficult to find work that corresponded to his skills.
“I sent about 90 applications and I only got a handful of interviews, so that was really surprising. I thought it would be much easier,” he said.
He said that Australian employers tend to attach great importance to the local experience, making it difficult for people who came to the country for career opportunities to find enough work.
“It’s like starting all over again,” he said.
“Although you have experience and qualifications, you have to learn how to navigate through the system, how you can build your network, how you approach recruitment managers and how you present and sell yourself. There are major challenges – lack of knowledge, cultural differences, lack of language – all play here.”
Recent analysis has demonstrated a gap between the demand from Australia for trained employees and their ability to integrate the right role here.
According to a report commissioned by Settlement Services International (SSI), more than 500,000 migrating employees who are already in Australia are under their skill level.
SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis said that the Australia migration program was designed to attract international talent, in particular to tackle national shortages of skills, but the study showed that more than 621,000 migrants were unable to work their full potential.
The report showed that every state and territory would benefit financially if migrating employees would have access to suitable work results, whereby the authors of the report estimate that the Australian economy could lose $ 9 billion a year.
But Rizvi said he doubted whether those issues probably influenced trained employees who were sought by Australian companies.
“Potential H-1B employees are not the group that would have difficulty recognizing their skills in Australia,” he said.
“The group that has difficulty recognizing their skills in Australia are usually competent migrants who have come through the family flow or as secondary applicants in the skill flow or as humanitarian participants.
“They are confronted with the greatest barriers to recognize their skills, and there the range of problems is several.”
RIZVI said that the challenge is really with the technical sector to use the skilled migrant fishing paths of Australia.
“This is certainly an opportunity and I think the question should really be asked about the Australian industry, the big, the great technical players in Australia, will they focus on these people?”
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