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The Government of Australia has expanded the scope of the Global Talent Independent Program, a permanent migration pathway for highly skilled technologists. The program, launched in November 2019, aims to attract tech talents from across the globe. The Government has also tripled the program’s intake for the current financial year.
The change was revealed in a new direction issued with regard to the two feeder visas used for the ‘Global Talent Independent'(GTI) program— Subclass 858 and Subclass 124, issued last month. The direction has replaced the target sectors for the GTI program.
Earlier, the Program targeted applicants who could earn more than $153,600 in a year, in one of the seven targeted fields such as quantum computing, cyber security, and fintech. But now, the number of targeted sectors has been expanded to 10 by including education, tourism and “circular economy”. At the same time, the remaining seven sectors are an expansion of the original seven. They are agri-food and agtech, energy, health industries, defence, advanced manufacturing and space, digitech, financial services and fintech.
It is understood that the term ‘digitech’ covers what was previously quantum information, advanced digital, data science, ICT and cyber security. In short, the targeted sectors have been selected foreseeing the economic growth of the country as well as the need to build resilience for the global shocks that may arise in the future and to create jobs.
This selection also aims to support the post-COVID 19 economic recovery of Australia. However, much information is not available regarding the skillsets that fall into each sector.
Intake level for GTI increased
Earlier, a few months ago, Australia had increased the cap for GTI to 15000 places from 5000, which was the first year target intake of the scheme. The government has also revealed that the GTI scheme would be central to the permanent migration program of Australia in the post-pandemic period.
In the first seven months, a total of 4109 people were awarded GTI visas. They were chosen from over 5923 Expressions of Interest received. Among these around 30 percent EOIs went to people with work experience in the ICT sector, especially in areas such as quantum information, advanced digital, data science as well as the ICT sector.
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