is it worth crossing the whole atlantic ocean to live in a country where you don't know anyone
and no one speaks your first language in today's video we're gonna talk about the
engineering market for migrants in Australia the challenges you might face if you're an immigrant
in this country and answer the question if it's worth moving to down under according to
the australian bureau of statistics 51 percent of engineers working in the profession in australia
are born overseas 59 percent of qualified engineers in australia are migrants yet
overseas-born engineers have a higher unemployment and underemployed rate compared to locally born
engineers and these figures are even worse for overseas born female engineers who have
almost three times the unemployment rate of australian born female engineers and in case
you're asking yourself what the biggest barrier to seeking work as a migrant engineer in australia is
I'll tell you according to a recent research conducted by Engineers Australia
involving more than 800 migrant engineers the biggest barriers are no australian work experience
international experience not valued in australia no local professional network or local reference
to use and jobs are only available to australian citizens and residents now you might be thinking
that's terrible news I'll never get a job Thanks Gabriel for killing my dreams
wait wait wait wait wait it it's not what you're thinking with the borders restrictions there's
an emerging engineering skills shortage in australia in addition to that there's been an
infrastructure boom so let's first have a look at some more data break down all this information and
make a conclusion if you have a look at this graph by Grattan institute the last bar you will see that
in the middle of 2019 the value of projects under construction was over 120 billion dollars
and two thirds of these projects are mega mega projects costing over 5 billion dollars
did you pay attention to what i just said it's mega mega project it's not only mega it's a
mega when something is mega mega it anyway you got the point before 2010 we didn't
even know what a project over five billion dollars looked like this other chart by abs
labor force shows that employment in heavy and civil engineering construction surged by 50
from 2016 to 2019 and as a stock trader myself i can tell you the trend is up place your bets for
the next 10 years also you would think that the pandemic would slow down construction
in australia but it was quite the opposite from personal experience i've been working on
double of the amount of projects that i would have been working at this same time of the year
prior pandemic and the future is bright for you my fellow engineer based on this last chart no
more charts after this one I promise we can tell that the number of infrastructure projects in new
south wales queensland victoria and wa is massive for the upcoming years especially because of the
olympic games in Brisbane in 2032. now let's go back to the issues immigrants encounter according
to the research by engineers australia that we talked about in the beginning of this video first
no local experience and international experience not valued in australia from my point of view
if the business needs your skill set it doesn't matter where you acquired your experience if it's
overseas or whatever as long as you can bring value to the company and they need your services
there are no reasons for them not to hire you however if you are applying for a more senior role
naturally it is expected some level of local of local experience and therefore you might have to
consider start from a supervised role so you can gain this local experience the second barrier was
no local professional network or local reference to use okay allow me to give my two cents here
networking is not calling everyone and asking them for a job what you should do i mean what i would
do is to meet people get to know them better and see how they might be able to help you and also
how you can help them develop relationships show honest interest in the other person and
eventually you will have a vast array of contacts that can help you with
employment and you can do that through linkedin and any professional events happening in your
area and the last barrier reported in the research was not having permanent residency or citizenship
the problem with that is in some types of visa you're not allowed to work full time also if
you're not a permanent resident the company risks investing time and resource on you and eventually
you might need to return to your own country but as i said before with this skill shortage
i believe if you are in a temporary visa that allows you to work full-time you won't have any
issues even if you're on a student visa you still have heaps of opportunities trust me
i've been there however i would strongly advise you to chase permanent residency as soon as
possible there are skilled visas visas 189 and190 and many other pathways you can follow
to achieve your citizenship so in summary if you think there is a skill shortage in australia
you're probably right and if you are an engineer looking for an opportunity
this is your time to shine my friend thanks for watching this video guys if you want to learn
how to get your first engineering job you can watch this video here and i'll see you next time