Australia will need a regular intake of skilled migrants to continue growing the economy, a leading demographer says.
Australian National University Professor Peter McDonald says immigration to Australia is a factor of labour demand and has a vital connection to economic expansion.
“The discussion in Australia is that we can fix population growth and forget about its relationship with the economy,” he told a seminar hosted by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) on Tuesday. In particular, he pointed to the growth of mining and other industries in Australia that need to fill labour shortages.
It is predicted that just one state – Western Australia – will need 130,000 workers in the construction industry, 69,000 in the mining industry, 45,000 in health and social care and 40,000 in the retail sector by 2020. Prof McDonald said Australia’s intake of 44,000 permanent migrants in the 2008-2009 year was insufficient to meet labour demand because it provided only 30,000 new skilled workers, which was “well below current demand”.
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Tags: CEDA, Western Australia