Skilled Migration News - March 2018
SkillSelect Update
The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has released the two invitation rounds (21 February 2018 and 7 March 2018) results since our last monthly update.
The number of Invitation remained at 305 in each round. 300 were allocated to subclass 189 visa while the remaining five were for subclass 489 EOI applicants. We expect this trend will continue in the coming rounds till the end of the current financial year.
Given that only a small number of invitations were offered in each round, only 70 points or above were invited. 70-pointers accounted for only around 16.7% and 23.3% of the total number of invitation in 21 February and 7 March invitation rounds respectively. In either round, the 75 pointers got the most invitations.
For 21 February round, DHA continued to clear most of the backlogs for some of the pro-rata arrangement occupations, such as ICT Business and System Analysts, Auditors and Software and Application Programmers. The invitations allocated to these three pro-rata arrangement occupations accounted for approximately 57% of the total invitations of this round. Among the non pro-rata occupations, Other Medical Practitioners (18), General Practitioners (17) and Registered Nurse (17) were the three types of occupations which received the most invitations.
Similarly, for 7 March round, the proportion allocated to non pro-rata applicants accounted for around 41%. We can also see that several non pro-rata arrangement occupations got double digit invitations – Registered Nurse (16), Other Medical Practitioners (14), Civil Engineering Professional (11) and Database and Systems Administrators and ICT Security Specialists (11).
It is worth noting that no invitation has been offered to Accountants since 3 January 2018. As mentioned in our previous post, this may due to the ceiling has been reached and this may suggest that no further invitation will be given to Accountant for the rest of this financial year. For details, please visit our previous post regarding the Accountants’ invitation.
Estimated processing time for pro-rata arrangement occupations
The table below shows the estimated waiting time for pro-rata arrangement occupations.
Occupation | Required points | Total invitations issued for 7 March round | Quota filled up | Remaining quota (%) | Approx. waiting time for those who reached the required points |
Accountants (2211) | N/A | N/A | 2633 | N/A | Not available |
Auditors (2212) | 80 | 16 | 906 | 421 (32%) | 7 weeks |
Electronics Engineers (2334) | 70 | 12 | 447 | 553 (55%) | 16 weeks |
Industrial, Mechanical and Production Engineers (2335) | 70 | 27 | 1,039 | 1,139 (52%) | 17 weeks |
Other Engineering Professionals (2339) | 75 | 13 | 572 | 428 (43%) | Next round |
Software and Applications Programmers (2613) | 75 | 77 | 3,185 | 3,017 (49%) | Next round |
ICT Business and System Analysts (2611) | 75 | 19 | 1,067 | 507(32%) | 5 weeks |
Computer Network Professionals (2631) | 75 | 16 | 671 | 647 (49%) | Next round |
Filled up rate for some popular occupations in Hong Kong
The table below sets out some Hong Kong popular occupations with low filled up rate. All of them are not under pro-rata arrangement.
Occupation | Quota for the financial year | No. of invitations up-to-date for 2017/18 | Filled up rate (%) |
Architects and Landscape Architects | 1,474 | 101 | 6.9 |
Civil Engineering Professionals | 3,296 | 368 | 11.2 |
Early Childhood (Pre-primary School) Teachers | 2,639 | 52 | 2.0 |
Secondary School Teachers | 7,910 | 173 | 2.0 |
Occupational Therapists | 1,109 | 25 | 2.3 |
Physiotherapists | 1,464 | 40 | 2.4 |
General Practitioners and Resident Medical officers | 3,495 | 108 | 3.1 |
Registered Nurses | 16,741 | 729 | 4.4 |
Psychologists | 1,750 | 23 | 1.3 |
Social Workers | 1,562 | 108 | 6.9 |
Processing time for 189 and 190 visas in general
According to the DHA, the estimated visa application processing time as of 20 March, 2018 for the following visas are as follows:
Subclass 189 (points-tested stream) – around 9 – 12 months (No change in processing time compared with previous announcement)
Subclass 190 (state nomination) – around 9 – 12 months (No change in processing time compared with previous announcement)
This is for indicative purpose only. Please bear in mind that processing times are impacted each month by changes in application volumes, seasonal peaks, complex cases, and incomplete applications.
State nomination statistics for subclass 190
DHA has not released the latest figures for March 2018. As such we have stated the latest (February 2017) figures here for reference:
Feb 2017 | Jan 2017 | From July 2017 – Feb 2018 | |
QLD | 94 | 82 | 747 |
NSW | 419 | 395 | 1751 |
VIC | 318 | 320 | 2006 |
WA | 0 | 0 | 0 |
SADDLE | 107 | 73 | 655 |
IAS | 60 | 75 | 363 |
ACT | 89 | 85 | 460 |
NT | 33 | 24 | 170 |
Total | 1120 | 1054 | 6152 |
Given the subclasses 189 and 190 visas are very competitive, you are strongly encouraged to talk to your Registered Migration Agent (“RMA”) for professional advice. For those who are looking for a RMA or are thinking of migration through Skilled migration categories, please visit our website and complete a free online assessment to book for an initial assessment with our professional migration professional.