As expected there were pro rata invitations for Accountants
ICT Business and System Analysts, Software and Applications Programmers and Auditors.
The passmark and EOI invitation date was not published for Auditors at this stage, but the expected invites (59) was close to how many were actually invited (55) so that is not significant at this stage.
Some of the non pro-rata occupations that closed early last program year have used up a fair few of their places just in this 1st round. Other Engineering professionals (423 out of 1000), Industrial/Mechanical/Production Engineers (391 out of 1539) and Computer Network Professionals (421 out of 1426). That suggested that these occupations may again close, but this time even earlier. i would predict around March 2017 based on those figures.
DIBP intended to invite 2600 places in the 6th July round, I expect to alleviate the backlog of EOIs that was created by closing some occupations earlier in 2016. But with pro-rata restrictions, and inviting every possible person at 60 points or above, they could ONLY get to 2202 places. A shortfall of 398.
The next invitation round is set at a lower 1300 and will average closer to that number for the rest of the 2016/17 program year. It will be interesting to see though what DIBP will do when some of those occupations close above in around March 2017, all the 60 pointers are used up and they are hamstrung by the pro rata policy they have in place.
Where will they get the other places to fill the skilled migration program ? They no longer have the old old old priority 5 applications in big numbers to fill up some places. Maybe they will
invite even more 489 (family sponsored) applicants and so the 60 pointers will get a chance who have been waiting so long, or maybe they will relax some of the strict quotas they have on some popular occupations.
We will watch with interest …