SkillSelect results for the 11 July 2019 invitation round have been released by the Department of Home Affairs.
It looks like the number of invitations issued in July did finally increase, no doubt as a result of the new financial year.
Points still high for subclass 189 visa invitations
Having said that, the number of invitations issued in July 2019 is still less than 40% of the number issued this time last year and is less than 25% of the number issued in October and November 2018! This drop, combined with the ridiculously low number of invitations issued in April, May and June 2019 (just 100 invitation for subclass 189 visas!) has lead to a significant increase in the number of points required to receive an invitation. Hopefully, if the number of invitations issued in each round for the subclass 189 visas remains at about 1000 we may see the points required drop back to 75 soon.
A clear push to the regions?
In contrast, 100 invitations were in July issued for subclass 489 visas. This may sound like a small number but it’s important to bear in mind that 120 489 visas were issued in the 2018/2019 financial year! It looks like this government means what it says when it comes “encouraging” migrants to consider moving to the regions!
Number of Invitations
|
Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189): 1000 Skilled Regional (provisional) visa (subclass 489): 100 |
|
Cut offs
The way the system works is that the highest ranked clients by points score are invited to apply for the relevant visa first. Where two expressions of interest have the same points score, the time at which they reached their points score for that subclass (the date of effect) determines which person receives an invitation first. Expressions of Interest with earlier “dates of effect” are invited before later dates.
|
Visa subclass |
Minimum points score |
Date of effect |
|
80 |
13/05/2019 7:32pm |
|
|
80 |
05/01/2019 12:22pm |
Pro-Rata Occupations
The Department of Home Affairs continues to use pro rata arrangements for certain high demand occupations to make sure that invitations are available for those occupations throughout the year.
The point scores and the date of effect cut off for the pro rata occupations in the 11 July 2019 invitation round are as follows:
|
Occupation ID |
Description |
Minimum points score |
Date of effect |
|
2211 |
Accountants |
85 |
14/12/2018 12:46pm |
|
2212 |
Auditors, Company Secretaries and Corporate Treasurers |
85 |
09/03/2019 11:46pm |
|
2334 |
Electronics Engineer |
80 |
05/05/2019 7:01pm |
|
2335 |
Industrial, Mechanical and Production Engineers |
80 |
10/05/2019 2.:51pm |
|
2339 |
Other Engineering Professionals |
80 |
01/04/2019 4:39pm |
|
2611 |
ICT Business and System Analysts |
80 |
12/04/2019 11:53pm |
|
2613 |
Software and Applications Programmers |
80 |
13/05/2019 7:10am |
|
2631 |
Computer Network Professionals |
80 |
13/05/2019 7:32pm |
Skilled visa applications can be complex little beasties and it’s important to work out whether you are actually eligible to pursue a skilled visa before spending lots of money of skills assessments, English tests and dare we say it … migration agents!
If you would like to know more about your skilled visa options, please contact us for a consultation.