Martin Ferguson, Former ACTU president and cabinet minister, has called for ease of working holiday visas after the latest report has revealed that the tourism industry will require more than 1,20,000 more employees by the end of 10 years.
According to a report, the Australian tourism industry is facing a shortage of around 38,000 workers and would need an additional 1,23,000 workers including the 60,000 skilled workers by 2020.
The report also suggested that relaxing the rules for working holiday visa will help if the tourism workers are allowed to extend their visas for second year.
It also says that reducing or removing the limits to extent that workers are permitted to reside in single job might help them to build their experience in the occupation and also decrease the turnover for the employers.
Supporting the changes to working holiday visa program, Mr. Ferguson said that the previous report from the Tourism Labour Force, the rate of dependency on the foreign workers have decreased from 13% to 10%, possibly reflecting the workers as they are moving from resource sector to the tourism sector. He also said that the government should allow temporary skilled workers to work when and where they are mostly required.
The government of Australia has recently announced that they are going to extend the visas for working holiday makers from six months to a year with single employer in the North regions of Australia.
According to Richard Colbeck, Australian Tourism Minister, the government was focusing on fixing the skills shortages through development of tourism job plans with the territory and state governments.
He also said that the report has identified that the increase of skills and labour shortages in the tourism industry has been alleviated as of now. The shortage of 56,000 by the year 2015 that was predicted in the year 2011 has not been realized, with actual vacancies were 38,000.
A spokeswoman for Colbeck told that the Australian government is considering the suggestions that are made in the report.
