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Representatives from the profession at the Jobs Summit emerged cautiously optimistic.
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Raised migration cap, smoother visas two wins for accounting
02 September 2022
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“Positive” and “valuable” summed up the Jobs and Skills Summit for two representatives from the accounting profession as they emerged from the Canberra event this afternoon.
Both nominated the increased migration target and move to make visa processing smoother as two wins for the accounting industry and were cautiously optimistic about the potential for structural change.
The CEO of PwC, Tom Seymour, said he would have liked a higher migration number but commitment to a long-term strategy was more important, along with more resources to speed up visa processing.
“There's a lot of interest in our industry out of Europe, so getting skilled people in on visas when it's taking up to 15 months to process in some cases, if they can unblock that, get that accelerated and then increase the caps – that's really positive,” he said.
“You can increase the number as high as you want but then if you actually go through the practical, logistical process of trying to get people here and you can't physically get them because the system’s clogged, than the actual gross number becomes almost irrelevant.”
“But one of the things that did come out is a broader conversation around how do you want to use immigration? How does that link to a broader skills strategy?”
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The CEO of CA ANZ, Ainslie van Onselen, said the summit “was an incredibly worthwhile experience” and also welcomed the raised migration cap and move to speedier visa processing.
She said it was exciting to see the gender pay gap and workforce participation as two central themes.
“If we can get that right, the summit will be an overwhelming success,” she said.
“I was also delighted when Sam Mostyn, chair of the government’s new Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce, publicly acknowledged the work that CA ANZ is doing to remove the disincentives that prevent women from workforce participation.”
“I look forward to reviewing the 32 outcomes of what has been a genuinely collaborative and constructive experience.”
Commenting on the summit outcome, head of data analytics at Benchmarking Data & Research Julia Thomson said the raised migration cap on its own would only go part of the way to covering the skills shortfall.
“Lifting the permanent migration cap by 35,000 is positive news for the accounting industry,” she said, “however, this is not a silver bullet.
“The data shows us that historically, skilled migrants only make up approximately 68 per cent of the total migrating cohort. Further, those arriving as accountants, auditors, company secretaries and corporate treasurers are just 4.1 per cent of all skilled migrants.”
With the raised cap, that meant an additional 4,850 accountants and auditors over five years against estimates by the National Skills Commission that Australia needs 25,600.
“So there is still a long way to go to fill the shortage gap,” she said.
The CEO of CPA Australia, Andrew Hunter, agreed that increasing the migrant intake on its own was insufficient and needed to go along with “a rethink of how we attract young people to professions struggling with shortages”.
But he said the government had momentum on its side and had to capitalise on the short-term wins.
“Our message to the government is don’t let this momentum go to waste,” Mr Hunter said. “Continue to deliver meaningful relief to businesses where possible and get to work on the longer-term challenge of future-proofing Australia’s workforce.
“We want to see more concrete initiatives included in the October budget.”
Building on the success of the summit would be key from here, Mr Seymour said, and while he welcomed the “clear intent” of the government to modernise the immigration system was only “mildly confident” that it could successfully bring it about.
“History would say we have these sort of big summits and then we don't actually get the change,” he said.
“Modernising the visa system is incredibly complex and a big job. It's not the sort of thing a government's just going to rush because of the stakes of getting it wrong are big.
“I have a high degree of confidence that government sees it as a priority and wants to do something about it.
“Will they be able to execute that intent into tangible outcomes? There's a lot of complexity and risk in that. And history would say that governments of both persuasions haven't done it very well in the past.”
Changes around reengaging the mature age workforce would also require work but was “an opportunity to bring the grey workforce back in to the profession”.
Over the longer term, getting TAFE, universities and micro-credentials to work better had huge potential benefits and the government should involve the private sector in the design on that process.
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