Australia witnesses 112% increase in Indian immigrants

Sydney, Apr 25 (UNI) The skilled and unskilled Indian immigrants landing on Australian shores has gone up by 112 per cent in the last five years, a research conducted by the Opposition Labor Party indicated.

Africa is the second highest in this category with 53 per cent more immigrants landing in Australia during the same period.

The Australian intake from W Asia is up by 52 per cent while the Philippines' contribution has also gone up by 42 per cent.

As the Australian economy managers and immigration department are battling to overcome the stifling shortages of skilled workers, the Opposition leader Kim Beazley has criticised the immigration policy.

While the skilled workers' arrival from the so-called cheap labour countries is not showing any sign of abating in the near future, the number of skilled immigrants from the industrialised countries, with weekly earnings above A0, is decreasing.

According to a research Labour Party, the intake labourers from Singapore is down 26 per cent, from Holland 22 per cent and from the US by 14 per cent.

The outcome of the Labor research has been made public at a time when the Australian Immigration department has announced another increase in the number of immigrants in the six months from July to December 2005.

A total of 65 804 migrants arrived in Australia home in the second half of the last year which represents an increase of 8.8 per cent on the corresponding previous period.

'It is particularly pleasing that more than 60 per cent of this increase is in skilled migrants and their families,' a Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) spokesman said in a statement while releasing the figures.

According to the DIMA figures, Europe (mainly the United Kingdom) at 24.4 per cent was the largest contributor to settler arrivals, followed by Oceania (mainly New Zealand) at 16 per cent. Other major sources included Southeast Asia (13.8 per cent), Northeast Asia (11.5 per cent) and Southern Asia (mainly India) at 11.2 per cent.

The Australian immigration policymakers have attributed the increase to the government campaigns to encourage skilled workers from overseas to settle down under.

''This underlines the pressing need to maintain a high quality skilled migration program, to ensure that we safeguard our future skilled labour force,'' DIMA spokesman has been quoted as saying.

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