Australia was heavily affected by the pandemic outbreak from 2020 till now, and since then, it has witnessed a series of deplorable immigrational changes, such as lockdown, travel restrictions, vetting, and banning of international visa applicants. Hence, the country required a dire need for certain professions to be included in their migration list to fill the shortage of those specific professions. In 2021, 22 professions initially managed to get into the list called PMSOL, abbreviated as the priority migration skilled occupation list.
Now, the PMSOL program has enlisted 22 additional occupations on the list to consolidate their attempt to fill the critical skills to alleviate the country from the devastating impact of the Covid-19. Its intention was to rescue the country’s economic infrastructure.
This means those 44 occupations listed in the PMSOL will be given more priority in terms of availing the visa before any other types of visas. While other skilled visas remain active, the PMSOL occupation-related visa applicants will receive a fast-track response from the Department of Home Affairs regarding their visa processing. It means no more waiting and less time for visa obtainment.
Taxation accountants, pharmacists, nurses, software engineers, social workers, and chefs are some of the notably skilled workers to have received the priority. When these professionals need to apply for Australian visas, they will be exempted from traveling to Australia amidst the travel restriction.
These forty-four occupations can revive the economy of Australia during this pandemic, as well as aid certain industries do their tasks responsibly without feeling the shortage. This current economic pressure and the lack of the right personnel within the right sector may jeopardize the country’s overall balance. All the professions listed in the PMSOL are necessary for the country’s overall advancement toward getting out of the obstacle created by Covid-19. It doesn’t mean the country doesn’t have the experts in those listed occupations; it is more to bring eligible people to put them into the right sector to offset the pressure required by that specific sector when the labour market faces a shortage.
One of the most remarkable professions added to PMSOL is the pharmacist. With immense pressure arising since the inception of the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out program, more and more community pharmacies are asked to join the vaccine roll-out scheme to administer the Covid-19 vaccines with the help of pharmacists. The need for vaccine doses for Covid-19 was about to increase and the decision to let these skilled pharmacists come through PMSOL to Australia will be a boon to aid the pharmacies in coping with the going pressure of such massive vaccination according to Alex Hawke, Australia’s immigration minister.
The 44 occupations are as follows with their respective ANZSCO codes:
| ANZSCO | Name |
|---|---|
| 111111 | Chief Executive or Managing Director |
| 133111 | Construction Project Manager |
| 221111 | Accountant (General) |
| 221112 | Management Accountant |
| 221113 | Taxation Accountant |
| 221213 | External Auditor |
| 221214 | Internal Auditor |
| 232212 | Surveyor |
| 232213 | Cartographer |
| 232214 | Other Spatial Scientist |
| 233211 | Civil Engineer |
| 233212 | Geotechnical Engineer |
| 233214 | Structural Engineer |
| 233215 | Transport Engineer |
| 233311 | Electrical Engineer |
| 233512 | Mechanical Engineer |
| 233611 | Mining Engineer (excluding Petroleum) |
| 233612 | Petroleum Engineer |
| 234611 | Medical Laboratory Scientist |
| 234711 | Veterinarian |
| 251511 | Hospital Pharmacist |
| 251512 | Industrial Pharmacist |
| 251513 | Retail Pharmacist |
| 251912 | Orthotist or Prosthetist |
| 253111 | General Practitioner |
| 253112 | Resident Medical Officer |
| 253411 | Psychiatrist |
| 253999 | Medical Practitioners nec |
| 254111 | Midwife |
| 254412 | Registered Nurse (Aged Care) |
| 254415 | Registered Nurse (Critical Care and Emergency) |
| 254418 | Registered Nurse (Medical) |
| 254422 | Registered Nurse (Mental Health) |
| 254423 | Registered Nurse (Perioperative) |
| 254499 | Registered Nurses nec |
| 261211 | Multimedia Specialist |
| 261311 | Analyst Programmer |
| 261312 | Developer Programmer |
| 261313 | Software Engineer |
| 261399 | Software and Applications Programmers nec |
| 262112 | ICT Security Specialist |
| 272511 | Social Worker |
| 312911 | Maintenance Planner |
| 351311 | Chef |
You must need to take the English language test, either IELTS or other relevant yet acceptable tests. For example, if you are applying for a visa as a nurse, you need to submit your IELTS test results to the AHPRA (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency) that you have obtained your required grades and accepted by the AHPRA. For nursing, you can use two different test results with a proviso that they need to be done within 6 months of each other. For more information about IELTS for nursing, check out the IELTS requirement for nursing in Australia.
For the other 43 occupations, find out your required IELTS score. If you are facing any problems related to your findings of the required score for IELTS or other tests, Optimus Education can help you get the most authentic and up-to-date information. Contact us today to know more about the PMSOL English language requirements.
PMSOL is temporary, and the occupation lists may change at any time depending on when Australia will fully recover from the pandemic. While there is a chance that the job lists may shift over a period of time, the federal government and National Skills Commission will presume its inspection of the impact of Covid-19 on the labour market and evaluate Australia’s skills need as soon as the new data regarding the correlation between the pandemic and skilled occupational list become available.
Before the time runs out and your selected occupation gets knocked out of the list as soon as the critical skills get filled out, it is time you should ponder on your journey to Australia through the PMSOL program, which aids your visa processing faster and brings you the exemption over other occupations. To apply through PMSOL without a rejection, contact Optimus Education today for all your visa-related work for any type of visa, including PMSOL.
