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Working holidaymaker numbers have soared to record levels. It’s a challenge for Labor
Australia is welcoming a record number of working holidaymakers into the country – with numbers surpassing 200,000 for the first time – as a strong labour market and a surge of British backpackers boost the ranks of working travellers this summer.
Their arrival is a boon to regional industries but will compound the Albanese government’s challenge in bringing down migration levels as it heads into a federal election campaign dominated by voters’ concerns about the cost of living, housing and immigration.
There were a record 213,400 people on working holidaymaker visas in Australia at the end of November – 43,000 more than last Christmas and 72,300 more than the pre-COVID level of 141,100 in December 2019. Last year, Australia took in about half of the world’s working travellers.
Those numbers will put pressure on Australia’s annual migration targets, which the Albanese government is scrambling to meet after overshooting Treasury’s forecasts for the past two years as visitors delay their departures from the country.
The post-pandemic immigration surge will be a heated political issue coming into next year’s election as both Labor and the Coalition pledge to bring down numbers.
Former immigration department official Abul Rizvi said Australia had set records for working holidaymakers throughout 2024, and politicians would need to address that if they wanted to reduce migration.
“It’s happened for several reasons,” Rizvi said. “Over the last decade, we have signed up for a large number of new working holidaymaker agreements with a lot of countries.
“We changed the rules for the UK: all others have to work in regional Australia, but Brits don’t; they can stay in Bondi the whole time. The third reason would be our strong labour market. You can get a pretty well-paying job for a long time.”
Why young British are flocking down under
British working tourists have led the surge, almost doubling in number under phased changes from the Morrison government’s trade agreement with the United Kingdom.
It raised the age from 30 to 35, allowed three-year stays and no longer required 88 days of regional work.
There were 47,000 British working travellers in Australia this November, up from 31,000 last December and 21,000 the year before.
Matt Titchen, Jodie Sharpe and Jessica Davies are among them. They were with hundreds of UK nationals celebrating Christmas at Sydney’s Bronte beach this year.
Titchen, who recently turned 30, said he would have been close to the cut-off age if the new UK agreement had not changed the criteria. “If I had to do the 88 days [of regional work], that still wouldn’t really concern me too much. I would definitely consider staying,” he said.
But Sharpe, 27, who works as an anaesthetic technician at a Sydney hospital, was glad to skip it. She said it had been a seamless transition from working in a hospital in Wales.
Her colleague Davies, a 27-year-old children’s nurse, agreed. “Especially in healthcare, a lot of our systems and how we train as nurses is quite similar to over here compared to other healthcare structures across Europe,” she said.
Celebrating Christmas in Melbourne was 24-year-old Henry Lanyon, who arrived from London in April. After working as a removalist in Brisbane to save money, he’s preparing to travel up the east coast.
While Lanyon came for a short-term adventure, he is considering a longer stay. “Initially, I just came out here because I wanted to do something, and Australia seemed like a good place,” he said.
“But I’ve been thinking about extending, and I think the visa changes have definitely influenced it because it’s just easy. I don’t have to worry about doing 88 days somewhere. I can just extend.
“There’s not much of a cultural shift, and it’s very easy to get visas. Loads of people have friends here already, and it’s quite a cool country as well – there’s lots of stuff to see.”
His friend, Thomas Leach, 23, is thinking ahead despite arriving in Australia just a few days ago. “There’s an assumption that the lifestyle here is better than back home, and all the people staying here are evidence of that,” he said.
Working travellers a ‘substantial contribution’ to migration program
There was also a record number of working holidaymakers from France (23,700) and Ireland (21,800) in November. A further 14,800 were from Japan, 13,400 from Taiwan, 13,200 from Italy and 12,700 from South Korea.
Rizvi said former prime minister Scott Morrison had “stomped on the accelerator” by allowing all working travellers to apply for a third one-year visa if they completed another 88 days of regional work.
Home Affairs in June reported a more than 300 per cent increase in applications for third-year visas.
“By that point [the third year], you’ve put down roots and probably want to stay, so what’s happening is working holidaymakers are now making a substantial contribution to net migration,” Rizvi said.
“What it’s done, fundamentally, is structurally increased the level of net migration under a normal labour market.”
While some countries have capped intakes, the big source countries such as the UK, France and Ireland are unlimited. Rizvi said the federal government would need to act on working holidaymaker numbers in addition to foreign students if it wanted to bring down migration – a pledge made by both Labor and the Coalition.
It would prove difficult. “Each individual working holidaymaker agreement will often have its own characteristics – you have to negotiate with each nation. It’s a slow, laborious process – it risks upsetting people,” Rizvi said.
Most significantly, cutting down on visas would trigger a backlash in the regions, tourism and agriculture sectors that rely on foreign workers.
“They’re an easy source of cheap labour in places where it’s hard to attract labour, and then they go spend all that money, often in local economies,” Rizvi said. “In the evening, they’re a bartender. In the morning, they might go for a snorkelling trip in the Barrier Reef. They’re a boon.”
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