Making Better Use of Migrants' Skills: New CEDA Research Report

Shared from: CEDA - Making better use of migrants' skills

Australia is an immigrant nation. Around 30 per cent of the population was born overseas. But we are still failing to make the best use of migrants’ skills in our workforce. This is despite many migrants having been selected precisely for the skills and knowledge they bring in a system designed to target skilled workers. 

Our failure to match the skills of migrants to the most appropriate jobs is holding back productivity at a time of historically weak productivity growth. In an economy facing widespread worker shortages, access to the right skills at the right time and getting the right people into the right jobs is critical. 

CEDA research in 2021 found nearly a quarter of permanent skilled migrants in Australia were working in a job beneath their skill level (in other words, they were experiencing skills mismatch). The level of mismatch is substantially higher among migrants on Family and Humanitarian visas.

Our 2021 report recommended changes to the system to better target the right migrants to the right jobs before they arrive in Australia. In this report, we recommend changes to improve the labour-market outcomes of migrants already in the country, based on new analysis of ABS Census data.

We find that on average across all temporary and permanent visa types, recent migrants earn significantly less than the Australian-born population. This has worsened over time: the hourly wage gap between recent migrants and Australian-born workers increased between 2011 and 2021.

Read the full report at CEDA.COM.AU/MIGRATION2024