Australien inför högre krav på språkfärdigheter för att få invandra

Australien har infört infört nya tuffare regler för arbetskraftsinvandring och för att komma som student till landet. Kraven på utbildning och kunskaper i engelska höjs.

Australia tightened its migration rules Monday in favor of English speakers and professionals, saying the country has been attracting too many hairdressers and cooks and too few doctors and engineers.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans blamed the overrepresentation of lower skilled immigrants on a system put in place by Prime Minister John Howard, whose government lost power in 2007 elections.

"Under the Howard government, we had a lot of cooks, a lot of hairdressers coming through," Evans told reporters. "We were taking hairdressers from overseas in front of doctors and nurses it didn't make any sense."

The new rules will favor applicants who already have job offers over those who merely have qualifications or who are studying. The measures are expected to dampen enrollment in Australian colleges by foreign students hoping to settle in the country.

Australia continues to have a shortage of accountants, partly because many of the 40,000 accountants who immigrated in the past five years did not have the professional or language skills to find work, Mr. Evans said.