Why aged care occupations are not on the Core Skills Occupation List in Australia - Jobs and Skills Australia states its analysis covers Skill Level 1 to 3 roles

Work VisasAged CareCSOL Structure

By Aussie Migration GuidePublished 27 October 202612 min read

Why Aged Care Roles Are Not on the Core Skills Occupation List

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It Is Not a Judgement About the Work.

If you work in aged care you have probably noticed the contradiction. Everyone agrees the sector is short of staff. Ministers say so, the industry says so, the shortage data says so. And yet your occupation is not on the list that lets an employer sponsor you in the ordinary way.

The explanation is structural, and it is worth understanding, because it tells you whether waiting is a strategy. It is not.

A reader who understands why aged care is off the list stops planning around a change that is not coming on their timeline, and starts asking a more useful question: whether their own qualification sits somewhere else entirely. That question is where the real opportunity usually is, and it is where this page points.

How the List Is Actually Built

The Core Skills Occupation List is built by Jobs and Skills Australia. It starts from the Occupation Shortage List and runs it through a migration model that weighs migrant labour market outcomes, how much an occupation relies on sponsored visa holders, domestic supply, and market salaries. Survey responses, submissions and stakeholder meetings feed in alongside that.

Then there is a scope rule that decides this question before any of that analysis is applied.

The Sentence That Explains Everything Else

Jobs and Skills Australia States That Its Analysis Covers Skill Level 1 to 3 Roles.

Occupations demoted to Skill Level 4 or 5 in the transition between classifications are not in scope. Only two Skill Level 4 occupations appear on the list at all, and both are there to meet international trade obligations rather than because of shortage.

Aged or Disabled Carer, Nursing Support Worker and Personal Care Assistant all sit at Skill Level 4, with a note that some roles in those groups are at Level 3. So the occupations are outside the band the analysis covers.

That is a different thing from being assessed and found wanting. Nobody weighed the shortage in aged care against the criteria and concluded it did not qualify. The occupations were never in the pool.

If you want to know which of the three codes applies to you and why the distinction matters, that is at which aged care ANZSCO code applies to you.

Being in Shortage Does Not Put You on the List

This is the assumption worth correcting directly, because people build years of planning on it.

What Jobs and Skills Australia Actually Says

The Occupation Shortage List is not determinative for the Core Skills Occupation List. Some occupations in genuine shortage are left off, where the evidence suggests migrants in that occupation fare poorly in the labour market over the long term. Some occupations that are not in shortage are included, where both migrant and domestic graduates do well.

It also says the list is not a prioritised list in any way. Inclusion does not rank an occupation and absence does not mean the work is not needed.

So the sentence you see repeated everywhere, that aged care is in critical shortage, is true. It is just not an argument about the list, and it does not predict a change to it.

Find Out Which List Your Qualification Sits On.

Send us your highest qualification, where you trained, what you are currently doing and when your visa expires. We will tell you which occupation lists are actually relevant to you, and whether the labour agreement route is your best option or your only apparent one. Those are not the same thing, and the difference is usually a qualification nobody has assessed yet.

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The Stream That Was Supposed to Fix This

When the current framework was designed, there were meant to be three streams, not two.

Stream	Status	What it covers
Specialist Skills	In force	Senior, high income roles, with no requirement for the occupation to be on a skilled list
Core Skills	In force	Occupations on the Core Skills Occupation List, with an income threshold and labour market testing
Essential Skills	Not commenced	Lower paid but socially critical work, named as including aged care, disability support and community services, for roles paying below the Core Skills threshold

Read the third row. That stream was designed for exactly the person reading this page. Commentary at the time described it as operating through labour agreements, possibly organised by sector or region, with additional compliance obligations on employers.

It has not commenced. A migration law summary from 2025 described the final policy as expected late that year. In its December 2025 submission to a parliamentary inquiry, the peak body for the aged care sector was still recommending that the Government establish a national Essential Skills visa for aged and community care, which tells you where it had got to by the end of 2025.

What That Means in Practical Terms

An announced stream that has not commenced is not a plan you can rely on. If you are waiting for the Essential Skills stream before making a decision about your own visa, you are waiting for something that has been pending for longer than most people's student visas last. Plan around the rules as they are, and treat any change as a bonus rather than a timeline.

What Exists Instead, and How Well It Is Working

In place of a stream, there is the aged care industry labour agreement. Your employer negotiates and signs it, and only then can it nominate you. We explain how it works at the Aged Care Industry Labour Agreement explained, and how to check whether a specific employer holds one at the aged care sponsor list.

It is worth knowing how much work that route is actually doing, and the most useful figure comes from the industry itself rather than from us.

From the Peak Body's December 2025 Submission

The Aged Care Industry Labour Agreement Had Delivered Only This Many Offshore Recruits.

249 offshore recruits over more than two and a half years

That figure covers offshore recruitment rather than every nomination, so it is not the whole picture. But for a sector describing a workforce crisis, it is a small number, and it is the sector's own assessment rather than a critic.

Why an Employer May Be Moving Slowly

The same submission asked for labour market testing to be removed for agreement occupations, saying providers face delays of months because of it. If you are the one waiting on an employer who seems to be moving slowly, some of that is not reluctance.

So What Should You Actually Do

Three honest options, and the first is the one most readers skip.

Check whether your qualification puts you somewhere else entirely. This is the single biggest thing on this page. A nurse working as a carer, a person with a degree working in a support role, someone whose overseas qualification has never been assessed, may be looking at the wrong list. Registered Nurse, for instance, is on the points-tested list and needs no employer at all. We cover that at overseas nurse working in aged care.
Work the labour agreement route properly rather than hopefully. That means identifying employers that actually hold an agreement rather than applying broadly, and asking the specific questions that reveal whether sponsorship is real.
Decide what you will do if neither works, and decide it before your visa is short. The worst position is arriving at ninety days remaining with no second option, which happens to people who spent two years waiting for a list to change.

If You Hold a Qualification Above the Role

This deserves its own line because it is the most common missed opportunity in this cluster.

The Point That Changes the Answer

A Large Share of the People Doing Direct Care Work in Australia Are Qualified for Something Else.

Nurses, allied health graduates, teachers, engineers, people with degrees that do not obviously connect to care work but do connect to an occupation on a points-tested list.

The list that excluded your current job has nothing to do with the list your qualification might sit on. Those are separate lists built for separate purposes, and being absent from one tells you nothing about the other. Our hub on routes that need no employer is at can you immigrate to Australia without a job offer.

If the Cert III carer route genuinely is your position, that page is at the aged care worker Cert III 482 route and it sets out what the route requires.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is aged care not on the Core Skills Occupation List if the sector is in critical shortage? v

The list is built by Jobs and Skills Australia, which states that its analysis covers Skill Level 1 to 3 roles only. Occupations at Skill Level 4 or 5 are not in scope. Aged or Disabled Carer, Nursing Support Worker and Personal Care Assistant all sit at Skill Level 4, so the occupations are outside the band the analysis covers. That is a different thing from being assessed and found wanting. Nobody weighed the shortage in aged care against the criteria and concluded it did not qualify. The occupations were never in the pool. Only two Skill Level 4 occupations appear on the list at all, and both are there to meet international trade obligations rather than because of shortage.

If aged care is in critical shortage, surely it will be added to the list soon? v

Jobs and Skills Australia says plainly that the Occupation Shortage List is not determinative for the Core Skills Occupation List. Some occupations in genuine shortage are left off, where the evidence suggests migrants in that occupation fare poorly in the labour market over the long term. The list is also not a prioritised list in any way. So the sentence that aged care is in critical shortage is true, but it is not an argument about the list, and it does not predict a change to it. Plan around the rules as they are, and treat any change as a bonus rather than a timeline.

What is the Essential Skills stream and when will it start? v

When the current framework was designed there were meant to be three streams. Specialist Skills covers senior high income roles. Core Skills covers occupations on the Core Skills Occupation List. Essential Skills was designed for lower paid but socially critical work, named as including aged care, disability support and community services, for roles paying below the Core Skills threshold. It was described as operating through labour agreements, possibly by sector or region. It has not commenced. A 2025 migration law summary described the final policy as expected late that year, and the peak body for the aged care sector was still recommending in December 2025 that the Government establish a national Essential Skills visa. An announced stream that has not commenced is not a plan you can rely on.

How many aged care workers has the labour agreement actually brought in? v

In its December 2025 submission to a parliamentary inquiry, the peak body for the aged care sector stated that the aged care industry labour agreement had delivered only 249 offshore recruits over more than two and a half years. That figure covers offshore recruitment rather than every nomination, so it is not the whole picture. But for a sector describing a workforce crisis, it is a small number, and it is the sector's own assessment rather than a critic. The same submission asked for labour market testing to be removed for agreement occupations, saying providers face delays of months, which is useful context if the employer you are talking to seems to be moving slowly.

I am a qualified nurse currently working as a carer. Does the CSOL question even apply to me? v

Not in the way it applies to someone whose only occupation is in direct care. Registered Nurse is on the Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List, which opens points-tested visas like the 189, 190 and 491. Those visas need no employer at all. The list that excluded your current job has nothing to do with the list your qualification might sit on. If your qualification is above the role you are doing, the practical thing to do is work out which list your qualification is on, because the answer is often what changes the whole plan. We cover the nurse case specifically in the overseas nurse article.

If none of this works, what should I actually do? v

Three honest options, and the first is the one most readers skip. Check whether your qualification puts you somewhere else entirely, because a nurse, allied health graduate, teacher or engineer working in a support role is often looking at the wrong list. Then work the labour agreement route properly rather than hopefully, which means identifying employers that actually hold an agreement rather than applying broadly. Then decide what you will do if neither works, and decide it before your visa is short. The worst position is arriving at ninety days remaining with no second option, which happens to people who spent two years waiting for a list to change.

Is there any chance the rules will change soon? v

We decided against predicting one way or the other in this article, because planning around a predicted change costs people real time. What the evidence supports is this: the Essential Skills stream was announced, remained undelivered through 2025, and the peak body was still asking for it in December 2025. There is nothing we found that confirms a commencement date or formal abandonment. The right approach is to plan around the rules as they are and treat any change as a bonus rather than a timeline. If the stream commences, it is good news on top of your existing plan rather than the plan itself.

Disclaimer: This article provides general information about the structural reason aged care occupations are not on the Core Skills Occupation List in Australia, and is current as at 27 October 2026. It is not immigration assistance or legal advice. The Core Skills Occupation List, the scope of Jobs and Skills Australia's analysis, the status of the Essential Skills stream, labour agreement figures and occupation Skill Levels can all move over time. Confirm the current CSOL position on the Department of Home Affairs website and current Jobs and Skills Australia consultation material directly, and get advice from a registered migration agent or lawyer before acting on a sequence that depends on your particular visa and timeline. Aussie Migration Guide is an independent information platform and is not a registered migration agent. Official information is published by the Department of Home Affairs at immi.homeaffairs.gov.au and by Jobs and Skills Australia at jobsandskills.gov.au.

The Most Useful Question Is Which List Your Qualification Sits On, Not Which One Your Current Job Does.

Send us your qualification, where you trained, your current role and when your visa expires. We will tell you which lists actually matter for your situation, and whether the labour agreement route is your best option or your only apparent one.

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