Many people on temporary visas in Australia are already doing skilled work every day, yet the way permanent residency is scored pays little attention to that track record. New research suggests this should change, and its proposals put real, documented work experience much closer to the centre of the picture.
Nothing has changed in the rules yet. These are recommendations from researchers, not government policy. But they offer a useful reminder that how well you can prove your skills may matter as much as which certificates you hold.
What the researchers looked at
The study linked tax, Census and visa records stretching back three decades, and compared how migrants actually fared in the workforce from the early 2010s through to 2022 with the pathway that brought them in.
Its main finding is that some of the factors that currently earn points have little or no link with how migrants go on to perform at work, and a few are even linked with weaker results. The factors flagged include:
- community language credentials
- regional study
- professional year programs
- specialist qualifications outside the core regulated fields
- having studied at an Australian university
The weakest results came from people who moved from a student visa into the points system. As a group, they tended to earn less and were noticeably more likely to be working in jobs below their qualification level.
Why the current design no longer fits
The test was built for a time when most applicants were overseas and starting from scratch. Today, most points-tested visas go to people who are already in Australia, many of them former international students. A large number of others wait for years on bridging and temporary visas.
The research points to three deeper problems:
- The weighting is off. Age, education, English and relevant work experience predict good outcomes, but they are not weighted to match, while low-value extras still earn points.
- One scale for every job. A single scale works reasonably well for regulated professions such as healthcare, where a qualification maps neatly onto a job, but much less well for engineering and business, where local networks and hiring habits matter more.
- Local track records are ignored. People already working in Australia are scored the same way as someone applying from overseas, even though their real performance can be seen.
The two proposed options
The first option is to tidy up the existing test: remove the categories that show no benefit and give more weight to age, education, English and Australian work experience.
The second, more ambitious option would create two streams. One would be a skills-based stream for applicants overseas and recent graduates who are not yet working locally, focused on occupations where newcomers reliably find skilled work, mostly regulated fields such as medicine. The other would be a labour market experience stream for temporary visa holders already employed in their nominated occupation, assessed mainly on age and their Australian earnings over the previous two years.
Either way, the researchers argue, selection would lean on what people have shown they can do, and there would be less reason to collect add-on credentials purely for points.
What this means for your skills and evidence
If proposals like these are taken up, the message for workers is clear: proven experience in your occupation could carry more weight, and so could the paperwork that shows it. Even under the current settings, being able to document your work well is valuable.
That is also the idea behind Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). Instead of starting a course from the beginning, you gather evidence of the work you already do, such as a work history, references from supervisors, examples of completed work, payslips and any licences or tickets. That evidence is compared with the units of competency in a nationally recognised qualification. A Registered Training Organisation (RTO) assesses it and, if the requirements are met, issues the qualification.
For people working below their qualification level, or whose overseas training is hard for employers to read, RPL may help turn day-to-day experience into an Australian qualification that matches the role they actually do. It can also be a practical way to get your records in order, which is useful for job applications, licences and skills assessments.
Watch this space
Any change to the points test would be a decision for government, and it is too early to say what, if anything, will be adopted. In the meantime, keep your employment records, references and examples of your work up to date, and look at whether a qualification already matches the experience you have built in Australia.
