In an attempt to 
stem chronic agricultural labor shortages., the Australian government has announced it intends to soon create a seasonal farm work visa for ASEAN workers. Minister for Agriculture David Littleproud has stated that the new visa was the result of negotiations with the UK, which agreed UK backpackers would no longer be required to work part of their time in Australia doing agricultural work in order to obtain second- and third-year Australian visas.
The new visa, Littleproud said, is the result of Prime Minister Scott Morrison agreeing in exchange for National Party support for the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
Even though the national unemployment rate stands at 5.5 percent, with youth unemployment at 10.5 percent, few locals are willing to fill rural Australia’s 200,000 job vacancies. There is a visa quota for up to 25,000 Pacific Island workers under the Pacific Labor Scheme (PLS), but only 12,000 places have been taken up. The absence of the British backpackers, who must work a minimum of 88 days in exchange for extended visas, means the loss of another 10,000 workers, a problem exacerbated by the March 2020 closing of the Australian border because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is a historic announcement given the decades-long reluctance of successive government administrations to open the sector to Asian workers. Arguments that Asian workers will take Australian jobs, have fallen away to the chronic rural labor shortage.
Source: eurasiareview.com
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