New Australian migrant list will hit business

New migrant list will hit business
YUKO NARUSHIMA
May 18, 2010

Restaurant and Catering Australia chief John Hart says the changes will force some restaurants out of business.

THE catering and restaurant industry has hit back at new rules published this week halving the number of skilled migrant places available for chefs and cooks.

Some restaurants would go out of business and others be forced to shorten their trading hours without migrant labour, according to Restaurant and Catering Australia chief executive John Hart.

''It's a nonsense,'' he said. ''Despite every tourism minister in every state calling for chefs to be left on, they took them off. It seems absurd.''

He said the industry was already 3000 cooks short before the federal government halved the number of places for which independent skilled migrants could apply.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans said a trimmed list would draw higher calibre migrants and would stop anyone subverting migration rules by studying ''low-value'' education courses in Australia.

Other jobs dropped were hairdressers, acupuncturists, journalists and naturopaths. Nurses, accountants, teachers and engineers were retained.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the list struck a balance between the immediate and long-term skills needs of the country. Private educators, however, predicted more college closures, thousands of job losses and a flight of international students to other countries.

Chief executive of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training, Andrew Smith, said international students had been given inadequate advice.

''We have to be absolutely honest about what Australia has done over a number of years now, and that was to link immigration and education,'' he said.

''Students invested tens of thousands of dollars on the basis of a clear government policy. It's unfair to them that the rules have changed during their courses.''

A high Australian dollar and widely publicised attacks on Indian students had already affected international colleges, Mr Smith said. Just a 5 per cent slump in student numbers would lead to more than 6000 job losses and $700 million in lost revenue.

A hairdressing tutor for four years at a private college, Vicki Bartlett, said the changes penalised students who were learning the trade legitimately.

''It will weed out the ferals who are rorting the system,'' she said, but added that international students she knew had already paid fees to salons for the equipment they needed to complete unpaid work-experience hours.

''Some are working so hard and it's unfair to move the goalposts on them,'' she said.

One foreign-owned college she knew of had continued to collect course fees until the moment it collapsed, she said.

''It's appalling how these kids are being treated,'' Ms Bartlett said.

Students in India, who have had visa applications cancelled, have reported difficulty in reclaiming millions of dollars in pre-paid fees.

The body that decided on the new list, Skills Australia, will update the list annually. It is scheduled to publish in coming weeks its rationale for exclusions.

Source: The Age

Australia Retail Sales Growth to Slump on Job Cuts, Access Says

Australia Retail Sales Growth to Slump on Job Cuts, Access Says
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By Jacob Greber

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Australian retail sales growth will slump from the middle of this year as rising unemployment offsets the positive impact from government cash handouts to workers, research company Access Economics said.
Retail sales growth, adjusted to remove the effect of inflation, will slow to 0.2 percent in the 12 months through June 2010 from 0.8 percent in fiscal 2009, Access Director David Rumbens said in a report released in Canberra today.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s government will this month begin distributing A$11 billion ($7 billion) in cash to families and workers to stoke household spending that accounts for more than half the economy. Gross domestic product unexpectedly shrank in the fourth quarter for the first time in eight years as consumers spent less at retailers including David Jones Ltd.
“Retailers face a tough road ahead,” Rumbens said. “The economic backdrop continues to get uglier, so these measures are only likely to result in real retail spending treading water in the first half of 2009.”
Access estimates the cash handouts will increase total consumer spending by A$500 million in the current quarter, and A$1.6 billion in the three months through June.
“The boost to consumer spending which will result, however, will be against a backdrop of a significant loss of labor income and further asset price falls in 2009,” the report said. “The real pain on profits and on jobs is just around the corner.”
Jobs advertised in newspapers and on the Internet tumbled by a record 10.4 percent in February and 39.8 percent from a year earlier, according to an Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. report released in Melbourne yesterday.

Jobless Rate
Employers probably cut 20,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rose to 5 percent from 4.8 percent in January, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. Jobs figures will be released on March 12.
Access predicts the jobless rate will peak at around 7.5 percent in mid 2010.
“A retail recovery may have to wait until fiscal 2011,” Rumbens said. “And watch out for housing prices,” which fell 3.3 percent last year. “If they were to take a major tumble, then the outlook for retailers would be notably worse.”
Companies including BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest miner, and manufacturer Pacific Brands Ltd., are firing workers after the economy shrank 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months as exports slumped.
To boost sales at retailers such as David Jones, Australia’s second-biggest department store chain, the government distributed A$8.7 billion in cash grants to families and pensioners in December. Of that, about 25 percent was spent, Access said.

Retail Sales
Retail sales jumped 3.8 percent in December, the most in eight years, and advanced 0.2 percent in January, according Bureau of Statistics figures.
Without the government’s December cash boost, retail sales that month would probably have stalled, Rumbens said in today’s report. Households will probably spend around 25 percent of the next round of handouts and use the rest to pay off debt or increase savings, he said.
“The outlook for retail in 2009 will be directly affected by the amount of deleveraging that households decide is prudent, as they attempt to build a buffer against uncertainty,” Rumbens said.
“This means that consumer caution -- paying down debt and saving more -- will compound the effects of lost labor income as the unemployment rate rises.”
Retailers will respond to weakening sales growth by firing workers, renegotiating property rents, cutting stock and working to maintain cash flow, today’s report said.
To contact the reporter for this story: Jacob Greber in Sydney at jgreber@bloomberg.net Last Updated: March 10, 2009 09:01 EDT

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Australia Dollar Gains to 1-Week High After U.S. Stocks Rally

Australia Dollar Gains to 1-Week High After U.S. Stocks Rally
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By Candice Zachariahs

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- The Australian dollar gained to the highest in a week as U.S. stocks posted their biggest rally this year, raising speculation investors will buy riskier assets. New Zealand’s dollar also advanced.
The currencies traded near the strongest in three days against the yen after Citigroup Inc. said it is having its best quarter since 2007. Gains in the currencies may be limited before a meeting tomorrow where New Zealand’s central bank is forecast to lower interest rates to a record low to boost an economy that’s entered its fifth quarter in recession.
“Lowered risk aversion concerns, driven by equity gains, delivered steady buying demand,” for the South Pacific nations’ currencies, wrote David Croy, a strategist at ANZ Investment Bank in Wellington. New Zealand’s currency was “dragged reluctantly higher off the back of a stronger Australian dollar.”
Australia’s currency rose 0.9 percent to 64.64 U.S. cents as of 8:56 a.m. in Sydney from 64.06 cents late in Asia yesterday. It earlier touched 64.88 cents, the most since March 5. The currency advanced 1.2 percent to 63.82 yen.
New Zealand’s dollar gained 1.2 percent to 50.44 U.S. cents from 49.83 cents in Asia yesterday. It bought 49.80 yen from 49.06 yen.

Stocks Rally
The currencies climbed as the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index jumped 6.4 percent, the most since Nov. 24. Citigroup Chief Executive officer Vikram Pandit said the bank had been profitable through the first two months of 2009.
Technical analysts at Citigroup recommended raising the exit point on their trading recommendation to buy the Australian dollar at 63.50 U.S. cents with an initial target of 68.50 U.S. cents and then 72.70 cents. Investors should place a stop at 63.30 cents to “limit downside exposure,” wrote New York-based Tom Fitzpatrick and London-based Shyam Devani, technical analysts at Citigroup, in a research note yesterday.
Recent “gains for the Australian dollar-U.S. dollar have been rather quick and are likely to be tested by short-term pullbacks in risk sentiment,” they wrote.
Gains in the Australian and New Zealand dollars may also be limited as New Zealand’s central bank will cut the official cash rate to at least 3 percent from 3.5 percent, according to 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Seven analysts estimate Governor Alan Bollard will lower the rate by 50 basis points, three expect a reduction of 75 basis points and three predict a 100 basis-point cut. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
The number of people employed in Australia probably fell by 20,000 and the unemployment rate likely climbed to 5 percent in February, the highest since April 2006, according to separate surveys. The government will report the jobless figures tomorrow.
Benchmark interest rates are 3.25 percent in Australia and 3.5 percent in New Zealand, compared with 0.1 percent in Japan and as low as zero in the U.S., attracting investors to the South Pacific nations’ higher-yielding assets. The risk in such trades is that currency market moves will erase profits.
To contact the reporter on this story: Candice Zachariahs in Sydney at czachariahs2@bloomberg.net Last Updated: March 10, 2009 18:13 EDT

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