Skills Top Family Ties (Australia)

Skills top family ties

Article from: Herald Sun
August 08, 2007 12:00am

AUSTRALIA'S migrant intake has jumped 72 per cent over the last decade, with skills now more likely to get immigrants through the door than family ties.

The Australian Social Trends report showed 180,000 immigrants were accepted in 2005-06, up from 105,000 in 1996-97.

Skilled immigrants were the biggest group of new arrivals.

They accounted for just over half of immigrants, up from 23 per cent a decade earlier.

The trend was reversed for immigrants arriving on family grounds, falling from 45.2 per cent to 25.6 per cent.

The report found China and India fuelled much of the growth in skilled immigration.

Skilled migrants from India jumped from 4700 to 12,300.

New Zealand and the UK remained our largest sources of migrants, but European migration decreased from 12 per cent to just 5 per cent.