General Procedures

Designated Area Migration Updates

Designated Area Migration Updates

Designated Area Migration Agreement (DAMA) is a formal agreement between the Australian government and a specific regional area. These agreements enable participating regions to respond to their unique workforce shortages by using experienced overseas workers to fill vacant skilled or semi-skilled positions that cannot be filled by Australians. On top of previously announced agreements covering the Northern Territory (NT) and the Great South Coast region in Victoria, the federal government has also agreed to establish DAMAs in additional regional locations of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia (WA) and Adelaide City and Regional South Australia (SA).
Designated Area Migration Updates

Updates

The new agreements follow the success of the NT DAMA that has been operational since 2014. The expansion of DAMAs will support regional businesses and communities by bringing the right skills and people into the areas of South Australia and Western Australia and will have a positive flow-on effect on the regional economy.

South Australia is becoming a world-class centre for space, defence and innovation and the SA DAMA arrangements will assist a range of industries including agriculture, forestry, hospitality, tourism, health and construction. The Adelaide City Technology and Innovation Advancement Agreement is signed for 5 years and covers 60 occupations. As many as 300 people will be able to be sponsored by this agreement per year. The Regional South Australia DAMA covers 114 occupations and is also for a 5- year period. It has the capacity to sponsor up to 750 people per year.

The Goldfields mining region is estimated to have over 1,000 job vacancies and is the first region in WA to sign DAMA. The Kalgoorlie-Boulder DAMA covers 72 occupations and targets mining, engineering, construction, childcare and health businesses. This agreement will be able to address the ongoing skill shortages and fill critical employment gaps with up to 500 skilled workers per year.

As always the first priority of all Australian businesses is to fill vacancies with local workforce. But where Australian workers are not available to fill those jobs, DAMAs will play an important role in helping to address the gaps. All DAMA programs are employer-sponsored only and individual workers cannot apply for a visa in these programs on their own without first being sponsored by an approved business.

However, individual workers may be eligible for a Skilled Migration pathway. Qualified specialists, managers and trades people can complete Skilled Visas assessment by clicking on the Yellow Pattern Road or using Visa Eligibility Assessment below.

Follow the Yellow Pattern Road for a free visa assessment


Follow the Yellow Pattern Road for a free visa assessment