Skilled Nominated visa (190) - NSW: updates 27 September 2023
Invitation rounds for the SKILLED NOMINATED visa (190) in NSW will commence next week.
What’s changing:
Due to high demand and limited places, to better address the skills shortages across the State, NSW will focus on priority sectors that need skilled workers, including:
Health
Education
Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
Infrastructure
Agriculture
Although the focus will be in key-industries, high-ranking Expressions of Interest (EOIs) in non-priority sectors may also be considered.
Temporary relaxation of working hours for student visa holders
The Department of Home Affairs and Australian Border Force has approved a temporary relaxation of working hours for student visa holders, when employed in specific sectors.
You can work for more than 40 hours a fortnight if you are:
employed in the tourism and hospitality sector
employed in the agriculture sector
enrolled in a health care related course and you are supporting the health effort against COVID-19 as directed by health officials
employed by an aged care Approved Provider or Commonwealth-funded aged care service provider with a RACS ID or a NAPS ID, before 8 September 2020
employed by a registered National Disability Insurance Scheme provider
The government will review these temporary measures regularly and will announce when these measures no longer apply.
Student visa holders do not have to apply to get these temporary measures but will need to contact their employers.
NEW PRIORITY MIGRATION SKILLED OCCUPATION LIST (PMSOL)
A new PRIORITY MIGRATION SKILLED OCCUPATION LIST (PMSOL) has been announced in order to allow sponsored skilled workers to return to Australia, fulfilling urgent skill needs in critical sectors and helping rebuild Australian economy.
The critical sectors included in the new PMSOL are healthcare, construction and IT; skilled workers who are sponsored in one of the PMSOL occupations, can get a travel exemption to move to Australia, but they must observe a 14 days quarantine once here (at their expenses).
Employers must advertise their vacancy in two national advertisements (included the Government’s jobactive website).
The 17 occupations in the PMSOL are:
- Chief Executive or Managing Director
- Construction Project Manager
- Mechanical Engineer
- General Practitioner
- Resident Medical Officer
- Psychiatrist
- Medical Practitioner nec
- Midwife
- Registered Nurse (Aged Care)
- Registered Nurse (Critical Care and Emergency)
- Registered Nurse (Medical)
- Registered Nurse (Mental Health)
- Registered Nurse (Perioperative)
- Registered Nurses nec
- Developer Programmer
- Software Engineer
- Maintenance Planner
CRITICAL COVID-19 WORK IN THE HEALTHCARE AND MEDICAL SECTORS TO COUNT AS SPECIFIED WORK
The Department of Home Affairs has announced changes to the Working Holiday Visa program.
Working holiday makers, who have worked in critical healthcare and medical sectors in response to the COVID-19 emergency, will now be able to count work undertaken after January 31, 2020 as specified work to apply for a second and third working holiday visa.
Changes will also be made to allow those who had a working holiday visa and then switched to a COVID-19 pandemic event visa subclass 408, to continue doing critical COVID-19 works in the health and medical sectors, which will count as specific work for the purpose of a 2nd or 3rd WHM visa.
To make these changes effective, regulation amendments are required. Further updates will be available soon.
VISA FEE WAIVER FOR STUDENTS AFFECTED BY COVID-19
To support the recovery of the international education sector in Australia, a new student visa visa fee waiver has been introduced.
A NIL (= $0) visa fee will be available for international students who need to lodge an additional student visa application, to complete their studies.
International students who held a student visa on or after the 1st of February 2020 and who were unable to complete their studies within their original visa, due to covid-19, will be eligible for the new visa fee waiver.
Students must:
apply for a new student visa after midnight on 5 August 2020
attach a 1545 COVID-19 IMPACTED STUDENT form, provided by their educational institution.
Students can be onshore or offshore. The visa fee waiver applies to new student visa applications only.