Thinking About It

Did you know that even if you don’t have any formal qualifications, if you have 5 years work experience in your Trade you may still be eligible for skilled migration to Australia. Trade Work Experience Requirement Your 5 years work experience may also include a period of training. If you are self-employed, you still may be eligible, but will need to provide more documents. Eligible Occupations Only certain occupations are available for this pathway – Skilled Occupation List (SOL) trades that may be eligible include: Carpenters Electricians Plumbers Air-conditioning and refrigeration Mechanics Motor Mechanics Metal Fabricators Welders Bricklayers Application Process Main stages of the application for General Skilled Migration are as follows: Skills Assessment Lodge Expression of Interest (EOI) State Nomination (if required) Visa application The first step is to get your skills assessed. This is a 2 step process and will involve a paper application and then either a technical or practical assessment of your skills in your home country or Australia if you are reside in Australia already. Unlike other visas types that enable you to move enter Australia, you must be invited to apply for General Skilled Migration through the SkillSelect EOI system. This is a critical stage of the process, but tradespersons generally progress through the system quite quickly with many eligible trade applicants receiving an invitation within a few weeks of having their skills assessed. To be eligible for General Skilled Migration, you will need to pass a points test – if you have a significant amount of …

Around about one week ago we announced that the latest Australian Skilled Occupations Lists had been published. Since writing this article, we’ve been picked up by a few online news organisations, and as a result, over 60,000 people have viewed the article! Together with these visitors, we’ve also had a heap of questions, posted both in the comments to the original SOL post and within our forums. It’s fair to say that the questions have a recurring theme. Questions along the lines of: My Job is ‘x’ Do we have any chance for a new startup in Australia? Can you tell me please where can I find more details about applying for ‘x.’ I have experience doing ‘x’, and my husband has experience doing ‘y’ Do we have a chance to live and work in Australia? A little clarification before we get into our article! 🙂 First things first, before we look to try and provide some clarity around these questions, I’d like to be clear that Getting Down Under (this website) is not linked to the Australian Immigration Department. I launched this site in 2006 as a blog to chronicle my own move with my family from the UK to Australia. Over time the website has grown to be much more than that. We now include coverage of the latest Australian migration related news and articles to try and explain in simple terms how the every changing Australian migration process works. This may likely be the reason why you ended up …

More Australians are content with their lives than the OECD average, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Better Life Index. Australians more satisfied with their lives according to Better life Index More Australians are content with their lives than the OECD average, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Better Life Index. The Better Life Index is an interactive web-based tool that measures and compares the well-being of people in OECD countries. The Index captures 11 aspects of life that shape the quality of their lives, such as housing, income, jobs and quality of life (through community, education, health, life satisfaction, safety and work-life balance and so on). Happiness or subjective well-being can be measured through life satisfaction, the presence of positive experiences and feelings, and the absence of negative experiences and feelings. Such measures, while subjective, are a useful when comparing the quality of life across countries. When asked to rate general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10,Australians gave a 7.3 with little difference between men and women.  Life satisfaction measures focussed on how people evaluate their life as a whole. The Better Life Index is updated every year and allows individuals to create their own ‘index’ to compare life in different countries. To see the full report on Australia and see it compare your own country, please visit the OECD Better Life Index With thanks to visabureau.com who helped contribute towards this article

We’ve already written an article providing an overview of the Australian Skilled Migration Visa Categories. This time we’ll provide you with an overview of the Australian Visa types relating to Family Migration. Applicants applying under one of the family related visa classes are selected on the basis of the family relationship to a sponsor in Australia. These will usually be partners, fiancés, dependent children and parents. Family Migration stream The Australian family migration stream allows for the migration of immediate family members of Australian citizens, permanent residents or eligible New Zealand citizens, such as partners or fiancés and dependent children. Places are also available for other family members, including parents, orphan relatives, aged dependent relatives, carers and remaining relatives. The planning level for the family stream in 2012-13 is set at 60 185 visas, which represents 31.7 per cent of the total migration program. The overall planning level for 2012-13 is set at 190 000. Family stream categories Family stream migrants are selected on the basis of their family relationship with their sponsor in Australia. There is no test for skills or language ability as required for skilled stream migrants. Family stream migration has four main categories; partner, children, parent and other family visa categories. Australian Partner Visa There are two visa types for partners wanting to migrate to Australia: Partner visa is for a spouse or de facto partner, including a same-sex partner of the Australian sponsor. Prospective Marriage visa for a fiancé who is overseas and who plans to marry their Australian sponsor after travelling …