The government recently introduced changes to the job categories under which people can be admitted into the country, reducing them from over 300 to 38. There was an expectation that that would reduce the number of applicants.
We note in the report that the backlog of applications prior to the introduction of these new categories has been reduced, but a backlog has been created under the new system. So there are currently close to 600,000 applications in total in the backlog.
The government expects that under the new system they will be able to deal with applications between six and 12 months. We have strongly encouraged the government to track that, because initial indications seem to indicate that the number of applications are still very high and very few are actually being refused. So quite rigorous tracking needs to be done to ensure that another backlog isn't being created and, if necessary, other measures are taken.