More than half (59%) of Australia’s 3 million recent permanent migrants are Australian citizens. This is according to new statistics released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) about the characteristics of permanent migrants who have arrived in Australia between 1 January 2000 and 10 August 2021.

Jenny Dobak, ABS head of migrant statistics said: “Today’s data release on recent permanent visa holders tells us that the majority are now Australian citizens, with those on a Skilled visa the mostly likely to have become Australian citizens (64 per cent), followed by those on a Humanitarian visa (61 per cent).

Ms Dobak noted yesterday’s release also offers new insights into permanent migrants’ visa history.

“We can see the majority of permanent migrants were granted a permanent visa as their first visa (1.7 million or 58 per cent),” Ms Dobak said. This was higher for Humanitarian migrants (93%), and those on Family visas (75%).”

“1.3 million permanent migrants were first granted a temporary visa before becoming a permanent migrant - most commonly a Temporary Student visa.”

The majority (71%) of permanent migrants were employed. This figure was higher for Skilled migrants (81%).

“In terms of top occupations, 10% of migrants from the Family visa stream and 14% of migrants from the Humanitarian visa stream were employed as Carers and Aides.”

“For migrants from the Skilled visa stream, the most common occupation was as Business, Human Resource and Marketing Professionals at 10%,” Ms Dobak said.