Evaluation of Australia's Working Holiday Maker (WHM) Program
Evaluation of Australia’s Working Holiday Maker (WHM) Program Paper to Accompany the Poster Session XXVI International Population Conference of the IUSSP Marrakech, Morocco September 27 - October 2, 2009 Dr Yan Tan Professor Sue Richardson Dr Laurence Lester Ms Lulu Sun 1 Introduction 1.1 Background of the WHM Program Australia’s Working Holiday Maker (WHM) program is a temporary migration mechanism to allow young people from nominated countries to travel, work and study in Australia. The WHM migration program includes two visa subclasses (417 and 462). Subclass 417 allows people aged 18-30 years from 19 countries with agreements with Australian (Belgium, Canada, the Republic of Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom) to experience culture and lifestyle through an extended holiday and incidental employment—the visa has a special focus on regional Australia. Subclass 462 allows tertiary educated persons aged 18-30 years with functional English from five other countries (Chile, Thailand, Turkey, the United States, and Malaysia 1) to holiday in Australia and supplement their travel funds through short-term employment. The WHM program commenced in 1975 at the same time as an Australian visa system was introduced. At this time reciprocal arrangements began with the United Kingdom (UK), Canada and Ireland. Arrangements were subsequently established with Japan (1980), the Netherlands (1981), the Republic of Korea (1995), Malta (1996) and Germany (2000). Although there are specific arrangements with these countries, the scheme was applied globally during the period from its commencement to 2000 and applicants from other countries were considered where there might be a benefit both to the applicant and Australia (DIMA, 2000a).
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