Australia lifts permanent immigration to 195,000

The Australian government announced on Friday it will increase its permanent immigration intake by 35,000 to 195,000 in the current fiscal year as the nation grapples with skills and labor shortages. Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil announced the increase for the year ending June 30, 2023, during a two-day summit of 140 representatives of governments, trade unions, businesses and industry to address skills shortages exacerbated by the pandemic.
Clare O'Neil, Australian Home Affairs Minister said "Our focus as a government is always going to be Australian jobs first, and that's why so much of the discussion at this summit so far talked about how we can use this incredible opportunity of low unemployment, and a skills shortage to bring marginalized groups into the workforce, some of whom have been locked out for a very long time, and we have a chance to change that. But the impact of COVID has been so severe that even if we do all of those things, we are still going to be thousands and thousands of workers short of where we need, at least in the short term."
Australia imposed some of the strictest international travel restrictions of a democratic country for 20 months early in the pandemic and gradually reopened to skilled workers from December last year.