Australian Economy Oversupplied with Low-Skilled Workers: Blame Mass Immigration! By James Reed

Macrobusiness.com.au published an article titled "Australian Economy Oversupplied with Low-Skilled Workers," authored by Leith van Onselen, Chief Economist at MB Fund and MB Super, behind a paywall, but not to worry, I paid my dues, so I report:

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2025/03/australian-economy-oversupplied-with-low-skilled-workers/

The piece leverages data from Jobs & Skills Australia, analysed by Justin Fabo of Antipodean Macro, to argue that Australia's record-high net overseas migration—1,044,160 permanent and long-term arrivals since the Albanese government took office in June 2022—has failed to address high-skilled labour shortages. Instead, it has flooded the economy with low-skilled workers. Charts presented in the article show employers facing little difficulty filling low-skilled roles (e.g., labourers, hospitality staff) but persistent struggles to recruit for high-skilled positions (e.g., engineers, medical professionals). Van Onselen critiques the immigration system, suggesting it prioritises quantity over quality, exacerbating wage stagnation and infrastructure strain without solving genuine skill gaps. The full analysis is behind a paywall, but the summary highlights a disconnect between migration policy and labour market needs.

This article dismantles the widely perpetuated narrative of a generalised "labour shortage" in Australia, revealing it as a myth propped up by vested interests—businesses, universities, and pro-immigration lobbyists. Here's the James Reed case:

1.Oversupply, Not Shortage, in Low-Skilled Sectors
The data clearly shows an abundance of low-skilled workers, with employers easily filling these roles. This contradicts claims of a broad labour shortage, suggesting instead a targeted deficit in high-skilled fields. If Australia were truly short of workers across the board, low-skilled vacancies would be as hard to fill as high-skilled ones—but they're not. The influx of over a million migrants since mid-2022 has saturated the low-end labour market, exposing the "shortage" as a selective problem misrepresented as universal.

2.Immigration Policy Misalignment
The article implies that Australia's migration system, often touted as "skilled," is a sham. If it were genuinely addressing shortages, high-skilled roles wouldn't remain vacant while low-skilled jobs overflow. This mismatch debunks the idea that more migration inherently solves labour woes—it's not a shortage of bodies but a shortage of specific expertise. Policymakers and businesses pushing for high migration are either clueless or deliberately flooding the market with cheap labour to suppress wages, not to fix skill gaps.

3.Economic Harm, Not Relief
Far from alleviating a crisis, this oversupply of low-skilled workers drags down productivity and living standards. Van Onselen's broader work on Macrobusiness ties mass migration to "capital shallowing"—where infrastructure and business investment can't keep pace with population growth—stagnating wages and straining cities. A real labour shortage would drive wages up as employers compete for scarce talent; instead, wages languish, signalling too many workers, not too few, in the wrong roles.

4.The Real Shortage: Training and Wages
The myth persists because it's convenient—businesses prefer importing cheap labour over training locals or raising pay to attract high-skilled Australians. If there's a shortage, it's of investment in domestic talent, not of warm bodies crossing borders. The data suggests employers could fill high-skilled roles by upskilling locals, but why bother when migration offers a quick, low-cost fix for the bottom rung? This exposes the "shortage" as a self-inflicted problem, not an inevitable crisis.

The Macrobusiness piece flips the script: Australia doesn't have a labour shortage—it has a policy failure. The flood of low-skilled migrants since 2022 has padded out an already full low-end workforce, leaving high-skilled gaps untouched and the economy worse off. The "labour shortage" is a myth peddled to justify mass migration, masking a reality of oversupply, wage suppression, and neglected local potential. It's not about needing more workers; it's about needing the right ones—and a system that's too lazy or greedy to prioritise them.

In short, it is one more example of the Great White Replacement by genocidal globalist Big Business and puppet governments.