The Australian government and the Department of Home Affairs are taking joint measures to help reduce the immense visa backlog. Giving priority to essential overseas candidates, soon a much faster visa processing timeline is to be expected for temporary skilled workers, international students, and visitors/tourists wanting to enter the country. Like most nations, Australia has been dealing with a huge amount of application backlogs, a shortage in processing officers’ inventory, and slow overall economic growth. However, the Minister of Immigration, Citizenship, and Multicultural Affairs has advised the Department of Home Affairs to increase the staff devoted to visa processing.

Key Points:

• The Australian Government redirects its focus on clearing key offshore backlogs

• Restored aim to provide visas & citizenship to students, skilled & visiting candidates

• Officers granting travel exemptions have been reallocated to visa processing

• 10.6% more applications were finalized in June 2022

• 140 new staff members redirected for visa processing roles

• The government's key goal is to restore the immigration conditions in Australia

To process a large number of applications in the shortest span possible, the government has already shifted the focus of immigration officers from granting travel exemptions to processing the existing files faster. More so, 140 new visa processing officers have been appointed for the task and as for the existing staff members, they have been directed to work overtime and their maximum potential.

Even when the percentage of applications received from June to May 2022 was 6.5% higher; it was rationally proportional to the percentage of files being finalized with the numbers of the same standing at 10.6%. Since June 2022, 745000 existing visa applications have been processed which includes almost 645,000 overseas applications. A further division of categories includes visitor visas, student visas, and temporary skilled visas.

With the new and updated measures being taken by the authorities of Australia, the immigration scenario is expected to improve inviting more and more candidates to contribute to the economic growth and consecutively meet the labor market shortage growth.