Knowledege@ASB - Skills Shortages: How Migrants Plus Older Workers Equal a Solution
Channel: UNSW Community
Date: 16/04/2012

With a new process to streamline Australia's skilled migration set to be introduced on July 1, debate over bringing in workers -- temporarily or permanently -- to address the country's skills shortages continues to rage. Some argue skilled immigrants threaten the jobs of unemployed Australians, but demographer Peter McDonald of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Population Ageing Research suggests this is not the case. Migrants can help to grow the economy and raise the wages of lower-skilled workers, he says, although they are only part of Australia's future economic growth story. Prolonging the participation of older people at work is vital, along with ramping up infrastructure to boost productivity.