Australia's Seasonal Worker Programme Unaffected by Wage Impact
A new study has examined the impact of Australia's Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP), now part of the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, on the earnings of local workers. The paper, released by the Development Policy Centre, analysed Australian tax and visa records to determine if the SWP affected domestic wages.
The study compared earnings of labourers in treatment and control regions before and after the SWP's announcement. It found no significant changes, aligning with other research on labour market impacts of immigration in Australia. The paper also assessed the SWP's impact on its first objective through various reports and surveys, including a 2018 World Bank report and a 2023 joint report based on the Pacific Labour Mobility Survey (PLMS).
The SWP was launched in 2012 with two objectives: contributing to economic development in partner Pacific countries and providing benefits to Australian employers and the domestic economy. However, despite its dual objectives, there is no rigorous causal evidence on whether the SWP or PALM scheme has affected key domestic indicators of interest. Evidence on the SWP's second objective is limited, with recent studies including a Food Supply Chain Capacity Study and an updated assessment of PALM scheme challenges by Richard Curtain.
The study concludes that the introduction and expansion of the SWP did not have a statistically discernible impact on the earnings of local farm workers in the most affected occupations and regions. The SWP may have supplemented a shrinking agricultural workforce where domestic supply was failing to meet employer demand, rather than substituting existing farm workers. Further research is needed to fully understand the scheme's impact on both Australian and Pacific economies.
