13/04/2021 How the pandemic has hit Australia’s fastest-growing migrant group – Monash Lens Unfortunately, as we’re reminded time and again, jobs for international students and temporary migrants in Australia are predominantly in industries with endemic – and open – levels of wage theft. Secondly, Australia’s skilled and student visa system attracts international students with the promise of permanent residency, a deliberate dangling carrot built into the system to give Australia’s higher education sector a competitive advantage globally. In aged care, Nepal-born migrants are more likely to be employed as casual and contract workers compared to the Australian-born workforce. The prospect of permanent residency comes at a substantial cost, however, including expensive higher education and visa fees. The pervasive labour exploitation of temporary student migrants is predicated on the nancial pressures that signi cant education-related debt creates. Re ecting this great nancial pressure, Nepali migrants (most of whom arrive as international students or their spouses) had the highest employment rates of any migrant group – even higher than those born in Australia – in the 2016 census. In 2016, the top industry of employment for the Nepal-born population was aged care, followed by hospitality and cleaning. Nepal-born workers were disproportionately employed across all three categories, compared to the overall overseas-born population and the Australia-born population. In aged care, Nepal-born migrants are more likely to be employed as casual and contract workers compared to the Australian-born workforce. At the start of the pandemic, then, Nepal-born workers were employed in one of the highest-risk settings – aged care – as predominantly casual employees, or were working in insecure hospitality and cleaning roles well below the minimum wage. Given this concentration of precarious work, the pandemic has greatly impacted employment and income rates for Nepalis. https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2021/04/12/1383007/tracing-the-impacts-of-the-covid-pandemic-on-australias-fastest-growing-migrant-… 5/8