We need people coming to Australia from overseas

It is announced today that Australia will be open to international students and temporary workers from 1 December.

Fully vaccinated international students, eligible visa holders and travellers from Japan and South Korea will be welcomed back to Australia from next week. Welcoming travellers from those countries would further help the tourism industry recover. The government is working on a figure of 200,000 migrant intake during this re-opening phase.

Vaccinated international students with a valid visa will no longer need an exemption to travel to Australia, but they will be subject to the quarantine arrangements of the state/territory they are travelling to. It is expected that international students would be back at universities early next year. The contribution of international students to the economy cannot be underestimated. Without their coming back, there is no way that Australia will recover. International students are big consumers of educational services and also for domestic retailing and tourism. Their share of the consumption of various services cannot be neglected.

It is also clear that the shortage of workers in hospitality and other sectors is hurting many small businesses. More than 20,000 nurses have terminated their registration last year and many complained of the long working hours. Some hairdressers have to be partially closed and customer queues extended because many workers have left their jobs during the lockdowns. The rapid development of online shopping promotes the logistic sector with more people leaving the job market. Australia will no longer be fully functional if a shortage of workers persists.

Only with more migrants coming back fast enough will reactivate the vibrancy of major capital cities. The various state and local governments need to be proactive in encouraging spending. As Hanukkah is coming, we are reminded that hope is always ahead of us. BlessingCALD has brought you an online exhibition about Hanukkah with is to start on coming Sunday. May you all be blessed.

Raymond Chow
Publisher