189/190/491/858

186/482/494

New Lodgements

Subclass 186 — Employer Nomination Scheme visa

Additional quota allocated

189

Quota not fully utilised

858GTI

A clear decline from its peak

-Offshore grants and lodgements each accounted for more than 60% of the total — arguably meeting the threshold for attracting ‘global talent’; whether these highly skilled applicants will actually enter Australia and contribute after being granted is another question.

491+494

-Processing speed is falling far short of lodgement volumes

190

likely received the largest share of supplementary quota

As at 31 July

Backlog of applications across five major visa subclasses

Last financial year

State-nominated lodgements following Subclass 190 state nomination

Non-migration visas 60,000 Subclass 482 visas granted in one financial year!

Now let’s look at the Subclass 482 employer-sponsored and Subclass 407 training visas, which don’t count against the migration programme quota — and of courseSubclass 482 holders whose nominated occupation is on the long-term list can subsequently transition to Subclass 186 for permanent residency

–Total new Subclass 482 lodgements for the financial year exceeded 68,000, with close to 60% from offshore, making it clearly the most significant category currently used to fill employment shortages

So if you currently have a job, can’t progress through the points-based system, you might want to consider employer sponsorship:Accounting, engineering, chefs, and other in-demand occupations — approval and grant in 2-3 months! The Department continues to accelerate processing — if you have the work experience, employer sponsorship is no longer something you can afford to treat as just a Plan B!

-What’s more, at least based on the data, the Department has made a genuine effort to meet employer demand for skilled workers,granting over 61,000 Subclass 482 visas, with more than half going to offshore applicants,and even accounting for secondary applicants, that is a substantial volume

-The refusal rate for Subclass 482 is very low — though the real hurdle in employer-sponsored categories is likely the nomination stage

-For Subclass 407, offshore grants accounted for 73% — somewhat surprising; overall lodgement volumes were modest at just over 3,000, and processing was fairly slow.But if your work experience doesn’t yet meet the requirements, using Subclass 407 as a stepping stone is definitely a worthwhile option.

To be fair, the Department did make a genuine effort on grants last financial year —most migration categories with quotas reached or exceeded their allocations(though generally not by a large margin).

So why do so many of us still feel like there are huge numbers of people waiting for grants?

First,because the inherited backlog is enormous, and the full story behind that could fill a book

Second, for most categories,new lodgements outnumber grants— the backlog keeps growing, which is why increasing the migration programme allocation this financial year is so fundamentally important

Third, for Subclass 189/190/491 (and 489),offshore grant rates are very low— offshore applicants are broadly slower than onshore ones

Fourth, at the momentthere is no discernible pattern to when grants are issued — it’s not being processed in lodgement order, which adds to the anxiety of waiting — when you see similar applications being granted or receiving requests for further information while you’ve heard nothing, it feels like you’ve been ‘forgotten’

Fifth, this feeling is especially acute when you’ve already been waiting 2-3 years and are offshore — it becomes deeply demoralising, which is why we’ve always saidregardless of priority, applications lodged in late 2019 and into 2020 should be cleared in one focused sweep— what possible justification is there for making someone wait 2-3 years for a visa?

The recent good news, however, is thatquite a few Subclass 189 and 491 applications lodged in early to mid-2020 have finally received requests for further information — some of the applicants have been offshore the entire time,and things are finally moving again!

Speaking of waiting for grants, we can’t help but mention Subclass 887 again — like Subclass 482 and 407 mentioned above, it doesn’t count against the financial year migration programme quota; that 160,000 or 190,000 figure has nothing to do with Subclass 887. Subclass 489 is treated as quasi-PR, so the Department effectively considers one migration place used at the time of grant.

So how quickly Subclass 887 is processed is entirely down to whether the Department wants to prioritise it internally.

, and it seems they clearly don’t right now —grants are trickling through sporadically (seemingly handled by the same visa officer — it feels like there’s only one person doing it), with processing still stuck on applications lodged in September/October 2020, and the current backlog has grown to around 20,000 — at this rate, the Subclass 887 backlog will surpass all other categories and become No. 1…

Subclass 887 applicants have already made a collective public statement once, and further activities are planned — all sorts of approaches have been tried or are being tried.

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