News

It’s too good and it’s true—according to a survey, the Australian wages have been growing in the past three months to May as a result of a strengthened job market. The Melbourne Institute Wages Report showed that the total pay went up to 4.3% for the past 12 months.
Edda Claus, a researcher at the Melbourne Institute, said that the total pay growth was higher than the hourly wage rate rises.
The survey also indicated that 65% of the participants said their pay rose for the 12-month period. ...

Financial Post

OTTAWA — Canada gained a "shockingly" high 108,700 jobs in April, led by the services sector, as the economic recovery continued to gain momentum.
The gain was the largest on record and the biggest percentage increase since August 2002, Statistics Canada said Friday. April also marked the fourth straight month of higher job numbers, and overshadowed the March total of 17,900.
"The employment increase in April brings total gains since the start of the upward trend in July 2009 to 285,000," Statistics Canada said.
"This was undoubtedly a shockingly good — and in some way inexplicable — jobs report for Canada," said Millan Mulraine, economics strategist at TD Securities.
"And while we believe that the strong economic recovery should continue to help the Canadian economic create jobs at a very respectable clip, this is clearly an unsustainable pace of job growth and we suspect we are likely to see some moderation in the pace of jobs growth in the coming month."
Canada's economic recovery has come much faster than anticipated, as record-low interest rates helped to drive the housing market higher and spurred retail spending.
Statistics Canada said the retail and wholesale trade sectors had the biggest gains in April, adding 32,000 jobs. ...

CANBERRA - Cooks and hairdressers will find it more difficult to secure permanent residency in Australia from July, after the government cut more than half the number of occupations listed in its skilled migration programme.
Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Evans said the new list was part of an ongoing attempt by the government to decouple the link between education and immigration, reported The Australian newspaper.
"Australia's migration programme cannot be determined by the courses studied by international students," he said in a statement.
More than 5,000 of the 41,000 general skilled visas granted in 2007 to 2008 were granted to cooks and hairdressers, and three-quarters of them had formerly studied in Australia.
"We value the international education sector. Its students will still be able to apply for permanent migration or be nominated by employers . ...

Times are looking better in Canada also, this morning a Canada based Oil and Gas company announced that they are looking to fill more than 50 vacant position in the company for its projects. The current vacancies are to be filled with the SRK Corporate Services. ...

The financial crisis paired with drought in Australia created thousands of new jobs, according to the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF).
Australia is in a desperate need of labour in the agriculture sector in order to avoid harvest waste. The government is concerned that the production potential will not be fulfilled due to the lack of work force.

“We calculate that over 100,000 jobs—80,000 for skilled labour and 22,000 entry-level positions—need to be filled in agriculture for farms to return to full production,” says NFF. ...

A looming skills shortage in Australia's IT sector is threatening to derail projects worth billions of dollars. The squeeze is putting pressure on the federal Government to relax immigration rules. ...

April shows a further rise of the skilled job vacancies in Australia compared with March 2010. Vacancies in April rose in two occupational groups monitored by the Department - trades and associate professionals. ...

New rules for student visas have been created in the beginning of the year, and will drastically affect the number of immigrants.
Many have taken advantage of the lenient student visas’ rules to enter the UK for other purposes. The recent changes in the requirements, however, were made to tighten the immigrant flow.
“Prospective students will have to speak English to a level just below GCSE standard, treating English as a foreign language, rather than the beginner level as at present,” reports guardian.co.uk. ...

On 6 April the UK government made significant changes to Tier 1 and Tier 2 of the points-based system.
The changes include new points criteria for both tiers, a simpler route for very highly skilled workers without Master's degrees, greater flexibility for short-term transfers by multinational companies, and more protection against the use of such transfers to fill long-term vacancies that should go to resident workers.'

The UK Government will make significant changes to Tier 1 (highly skilled workers) and Tier 2 (skilled workers with a job offer and Intra-Company Transfers) of the points-based system.
The changes will come into effect on 6 April 2010. ...

A government report showed that the Australian index measuring the number of jobs available for skilled workers rose in March compared to February.
Positions for trades people, including builders and mechanics, rose 3.0 percent.