India-born taxi drivers will soon outnumber Australian cabbies, making it the first time the number of workers from a foreign country in a major occupation will exceed their Australia-born counterparts.
India is set to emerge next year as the country of birth of most number of automobile drivers - made up of cabbies and chauffeurs, news.Com.Au reported today citing Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data.
This multicultural milestone will be the first time that Australian-born workers in a major occupation have been exceeded by workers from a single overseas country since the Australian Bureau of Statistics has kept records, the report said.
Australian-born workers make up less than half of all workers in low-paying, manual professions like sewing machine operators and clothing trades workers.
However, Australian is still the most common nationality among those employees.
The number of Indian taxi drivers rose from around 2,000 in 2006 to 6,000 in 2011, which the report partly ascribed to Australia's success in attracting Indian students to its education system.
"There's been a big push to sell education in Australia to the subcontinent, which has produced a large number of subcontinent students looking to make a bit of money on the side," David Chalke, social analyst and consultant to AustraliaSCAN, a market research organisation was quoted as saying by the website.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics census data, an Indian-speaking taxi driver is more likely to have finished high school than an English-speaking one.
"There aren't necessarily the jobs available in the area (in which the students graduate), so they end up taxi driving. A lot of those education visas were those that allow you to graduate and then work," Chalke said.
According to the census report, between 2006 and 2011, Australian-born taxi drivers declined by around 1,400, while Indian-born drivers increased by more than 4,000.
South Australia and Victoria are home to more Indian-born cabbies, Chalke said.
"One of the other things we've found is particularly where English is a driver's second language, it was easier for (Indian drivers) to not really to be engaged in the banter and the communication that you might expect out of an Australian-born driver," Blair Davies, CEO of the Australian Taxi Industry Association was quoted as saying in the report.
There are other areas in the country where the number of India-born drivers is less in number.
Besides drivers, the textile industry, professional cooking and housekeeping are among the occupations with the highest proportions of Indian workers.
