PALM workers in Australia – Fiji Times

A few months ago, we noted a large discrepancy between the number of Pacific Australian Labour Mobility Program (PALM) workers reported by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) and the number of PALM workers in the country shown by Department of Home Affairs visa data, with the latter number being significantly lower.

Now, DEWR Minister Natalie James admitted in her opening statement before the Senate Budget Committee (June 3) that “the worker figures were miscalculated.” Further questioning revealed that the number of PALM workers was overestimated by approximately 5,000 people.

Figure 1 compares the visa data with those reported by DEWR (which is responsible for PALM).

The March 2024 figure is the one published in Senate Estimates and guaranteed by the department.

Other previously published DEWR data has now been flagged as incorrect by the department.

Prior to March 2024, visa data consistently showed a significantly lower number of PALM workers: the average shortfall prior to March was 5,633.

Visa data is not perfect. Some PALM visa holders have absconded. If their visa has not been cancelled they will still be counted. Some multi-year PALM workers may leave Australia at any time, for holiday or family emergency.

There are also 10,000 bridging visa holders from Pacific countries – people in Australia seeking to switch to a visa type that would allow them to stay.

That number is surprising, but it’s roughly the number of asylum applications from these countries since monthly data was first published in November 2019.

However, I have heard from some employers that some PALM workers have reportedly been switched from 408 visas (issued to extend their stay during COVID) to bridging visas. If true, this would further complicate the situation.

Despite these caveats, visa data remain the best we have, and the latest revised DEWR figure for March itself differs from the visa figure by only a small fraction (0.2%).

This is not surprising: what better source of data than visas to work out how many people are in Australia on a particular visa?

Here’s what the visa data shows about the PALM program’s growth during COVID. It’s certainly impressive, but that growth is clearly over, at least for now.

Disclosure: This research was supported by the Pacific Research Program, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.

This article was originally published on the Australian National University Development Policy Centre’s DevPolicy blog (devpolicy.org).

• n Stephen House is Professor of Economics and Director of the Development Policy Centre at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of this newspaper.