ABS report finds most of 1.5 million temporary visa holders in Australia have jobs or want them

About 1.5 million people are in Australia on temporary visas. And an extraordinary number of them have jobs.

Melbourne is popular with overseas students and others on temporary visas.

Most of the 1.5 million temporary residents in Australia in 2016 had jobs or were looking for work, says a new report.

And half of the temporary entrants were living in Melbourne and Sydney, adding to congestion and strained services.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics report for the first time details social and economic characteristics of the army of temporary residents here.

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Melbourne is popular for people in Australia on temporary visas.

Based on census data and visa information from the Department of Home Affairs, it found that New Zealand citizens on special visas comprised 41 per cent of the total number.

Next were foreign students (30 per cent), temporary skilled workers (10 per cent) and working holiday makers (8 per cent).

The report Insights from the Australian Census and Temporary Entrants Integrated Dataset 2016 does not include people here on visitor visas.

In 2016, 68 per cent of temporary residents aged 15-plus were in the labour force.

Temporary skilled workers were most likely to be in the workforce, with 86 per cent participation and a jobless rate of 4 per cent.

About 84 per cent of working holiday makers were in the labour force, with 11.3 per cent unemployed.

And half of student visa holders, some 240,000 people, were in the workforce, with a jobless rate of 20.1 per cent.

Foreign students are a major group with temporary entrant visas.

Almost a third of international students lived in Melbourne, with China and India the biggest birthplace groups.

Almost a third of all students worked as cleaners, food process workers and kitchen hands, while 23 per cent worked as carers, aides, waiters and other hospitality workers.

Of all temporary residents, most were likely to have jobs as labourers (19 per cent), professionals (16 per cent) and technicians and trades workers (15 per cent).

The median personal weekly income of all temporary residents aged 15-plus was $542, while temporary skilled workers fetched an average $1143 a week.

Working holiday makers had a median weekly income of $648, and were mainly born in South Korea (17 per cent), Taiwan (16 per cent) and England (14 per cent).

Some migration experts have raised concerns about the temporary arrivals competing for jobs with Australians and their contribution to rapid population growth in cities like Melbourne.

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@JMasanauskas