Immigration expert claims government has ‘no plan’ to combat worker crisis

Australia is facing a serious worker crisis, and an immigration expert says there is “no plan” to fix the problem.

The Australian government has already committed to a skilled migration intake of 110,000 for 2022-23, but immigration expert Abul Rizvi claims the government hasn’t thought the intake through.

Rizvi is particularly concerned with the early childcare education initiatives in Victoria and New South Wales, fearing there will be a lack of teachers to teach these children.

“We have no plan for how we’re going to deal with the crisis that emerges there,” he told Neil Mitchell.

The health care sector is another area of concern due to the stresses of the pandemic.

“There is absolutely no doubt, we over the next 10 years will face massive shortages in the health and aged care space, the rate of which are aging makes that just absolutely inevitable,” he said.

Rivzi says there is a solution to this problem.

“We target where we have long term structural shortages, and where the migration system does not work well. We fix that, and we fix that for the next decade,” he said.

“Let’s get the policy settings right and the number will take care of itself.”

Press PLAY to hear the immigration expert’s views on dealing with worker shortages in Australia