Victoria flagged first thing this morning that invitations were on the way. You can tell the overall scale of this round isn’t large — it is Victoria’s second invitation round of the current financial year, with scores shown in the header image.
Every state also officially announced their quotas this morning, and Victoria’s allocation was hit hard too, with overall quotas cut by more than 30 per cent.
The overall trend remains crystal clear — the policy continues to prioritise onshore applicants and put work front and centre.
Everyone invited onshore held Victoria-related employment. While a small number of offshore applicants did receive invitations, the numbers were limited and all had work-experience points.
In short: onshore success hinges on employment, offshore success hinges on work experience.
The popular occupations continue to follow the trend from the previous round
Nursing remains in hot demand
Scores this round mostly fell between 70 and 85 — still noticeably lower than 189. Nursing candidates should seriously consider Victoria.
Construction trades are running hot
Carpenters were landing invitations with a raw score of just 65. I’ve talked before about carpentry as an occupation — anyone suited to it should consider giving it a go.
Early childhood education, OT, electrical engineering, and accounting also received invitations.
Most successful applicants had onshore employment with relatively high salaries.
That said, an early childhood education applicant — single, $60k salary, raw 75 points — did receive an invitation, which gives many people in the ECE field a bit of hope.
No 491 invitations have been spotted in this round yet.
On quotas, based on today’s announced state-nomination allocations
The 190 quota is down by 300 places
From last year’s 3,000 to this year’s 2,700 — a contraction of only around 10 per cent. Against the backdrop of sweeping quota cuts elsewhere, the 190 reduction is actually quite mild, and the impact on mainstream applicants is limited.
The 491, however, has been slashed off a cliff
From 2,000 down to just 700 — a cut of 1,300 places, or 65 per cent.
As you’d expect, the 491 is going to be extremely tight this year, with a clear drop in invitations.
There’s a strong chance the graduate concession policy won’t be coming back either.
Competition for the 491 will be significantly fiercer than before.
