Australia to offer thousands of permanent job visas shortly

Australia is opening its doors wider enough for those love to work permanently in the nation

The government is willing to increase its permanent immigration by 35,000 to 195,000 this fiscal, Reuters reported

The decision comes as the businesses in the nation are struggling with staff shortages.

Staff shortage is particularly acute after Australia closed its borders for two years due to covid crisis.

Alongside strict visa rules and exodus of holiday workers and leaving of foreign students added to the crisis.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil told a government jobs summit that thousands more nurses to be settling in the country this year, thousands more engineers.

The centre-left Labor government held the two-day summit in Canberra, the national capital to help find solutions to key economic challenges.

Businesses called for raising annual immigration from 160,000, prompting the government to make temporary changes to fill the labour gap.

As Australia was competing with developed nations for skilled workers, the nation's long visa processing times worsened the staff shortage crisis.

To speed up visa processing, the government will spend A$36.1 million ($25 million) to increase staff capacity by 500 people for the next nine months, according to Immigration Minister Andrew Giles.