The Australian Industry Group welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to Jobs & Skills Australia (JSA) regarding the 2025 Core Skills Occupation List (CSOL) consultations.

Skilled migration makes an essential contribution to the Australian economy and labour market. In 2024, Australia attracted approximately 90,000 migrants through the temporary and permanent skilled pathways, accounting for 18.9% of non-citizen migrant arrivals. By providing access to skilled employees in areas of identified need, the skilled migration program helps address occupational shortages which impact the ability of industry to deliver on our national goals for housing, care, the net zero transition and many more.

The Australian Industry Group welcomes the new approach being adopted via the CSOL to identify those occupations appropriate for inclusion in skilled migration pathways. It will ensure that areas of occupational shortage are identified in an evidence-based manner, and that decisions regarding the role of migrant labour market outcomes are made in a similar manner. The supplementation of quantitative evidence with qualitative industry consultation importantly also provides the flexibility to respond to changing labour market conditions that may not be apparent in statistical data.

The adoption of the new CSOL methodology introduces new structural features to the way in which Australia identifies occupations for inclusion in the skilled migration program. Principal amongst these are: (1) the introduction of periodic annual review; (2) the introduction of a new machine-learning supplemented methodology to identify occupational shortages; and (3) the introduction of systematic analysis of migrant labour market outcomes.

These new features are welcome additions to Australia’s skilled migration system. However, to ensure the CSOL meets the needs of Australian employers, migrants and the wider community it is critical that these new structural features are implemented in a transparent and responsive manner.

We recognise and welcome that JSA has provided detailed information through its published technical papers on the CSOL[2] and OSL[3] methodologies. However, we argue there are three areas where further information and clarification on these three features is required. These areas, and our recommendations for further consultation, are enumerated in the remainder of this submission below.