Relaxed migration rules are set to help Northern Territory employers fill critical skilled worker shortages, the federal government says.
The designated area migration agreement will be updated to increase the number of migrant workers who can travel and work in the territory.
"It is about skills. It is about getting more people here. It is also about seeing people being able to permanently migrate here easier than before," Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said on Monday.
"It is a special agreement for the NT to make sure it can meet that demand up here and compete internally.
Mr Hawke said for every 600 people who come to work in Australia, 20 more jobs are created.
The amendment to the NT DAMA increases the number of eligible occupations for migration to 124 skilled and semi-skilled jobs
These have been identified as having a critical shortage of workers. The new DAMA also provides additional concessions to standard visa eligibility.
NT Minister for Jobs and Training Paul Kirby said these include agriculture and aquaculture, which were "desperate" for workers.
But he reminded employers they did have to look for workers locally before bringing people from overseas.
The NT was the first region to use DAMAs to respond to its unique workforce shortages in 2015. Since then eight more DAMAs have been created.
About 275 business have applied since 2019 to fill 925 positions with overseas workers.
A further 200 places under the skilled work regional subclass has also been allocated to the NT for 2021-22, on top of the 500 places already allotted.
The NT's unemployment rate fell by 0.4 per cent to 3.8 per cent in January, which was the third lowest seasonally adjusted rate in the country.
It comes a week after the NT government announced that 150 workers from Fiji and Timor-Leste would travel to Darwin and Alice Springs in March and April to work in tourism, hospitality, aged care, disability and agriculture sectors through the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme.
