Some statistics say that about one million Australians live and work overseas.
However, the COVID pandemic has caused almost 400,000 of these Australians to return home, mainly due to the safety offered in Australia.
Many of those might end up resettling their lives back in Australia, permanently.
Australia could therefore be facing an influx of returning Australians with varying levels of overseas working experience.
Many returnimg Australians will be needing jobs.
This could be detrimental to other overseas visa applicants who rely on Australian employers being unable to find relevantly qualified workers from the pool of Australian Citizens and Permanent Residents. (A condition for many temporary work visas is that the vacancy must be filled by an Australian Citizen or Permanent Resident if possible. Only then offered to a temporary visa applicant if the employer cannot find anyone in Australia.)
Some returning Australians might be creating jobs.
One good benefit might be from those Australians that have been running businesses and operations overseas, and that are now using their knowledge and experience to do the same in Australia.
This could actually create even more employment opportunities in the long term.
This situation is prompting government and business leaders to hope for a kind of “reverse brain drain” of skilled professionals that could bolster the economy.
The ABC article on this is at
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-29/coronavirus-pandemic-could-reverse-australia-brain-drain/12654606