Relaxed migration rules are set to help Northern Territory employers fill critically skilled workers shortages, the federal government says.
The designated area migration contract will be updated to increase the number of migrant workers traveling and working in the territory.
“It’s about skills. It’s about getting more people here. It’s also about making it easier for people to migrate here permanently than ever before,” Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said on Monday.
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“There is a special agreement for the NT to ensure that it can meet this demand here and compete internally.
Mr Hawke said for every 600 people working in Australia, 20 more jobs would be created.
The amendment to NT DAMA increases the number of eligible migration jobs to 124 skilled and semi-skilled jobs
These were identified as a critical shortage of workers. The new DAMA also offers additional concessions for the standard visa requirement.
NT Minister for Jobs and Education Paul Kirby said these included agriculture and aquaculture, which were “desperate” for workers.
But he reminded employers that they have to look for workers locally before bringing in people from abroad.
The NT was the first region to use DAMAs to respond to its unique labor shortage in 2015. Since then, eight more DAMAs have been created.
About 275 businesses have registered since 2019 to fill 925 positions with foreign workers.
A further 200 jobs under the qualified labor regional subclass were also allocated to the NT for 2021-2222, on top of the 500 jobs already allocated.
The NT’s unemployment rate fell by 0.4% to 3.8% in January, which was the third lowest seasonally adjusted rate in the country.
It comes a week after the NT government announced that 150 workers from Fiji and Timor-Leste will travel to Darwin and Alice Springs in March and April to work in the tourism, hospitality, aged care, disability and agriculture sectors through the Pacific Australia Labor Mobility Scheme create.
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