From the small town of Toowoomba near Australia's Gold Coast, Dennis Davey is trolling the world for people to work in his 200-person engineering company.
He has snared 15 workers from South Africa and 15 more from China. Some of the South Africans have already been poached away by the town's mining companies, so if the latest batch of Chinese works out, Davey says, he will bring over at least 50 more.
"We have no choice," he said in a telephone interview. "We can't find any more people."
The future of Davey Engineering -- and other Australian companies -- may hinge on the efforts of Australian immigration officials such as Angus Pryor, who set up shop inside a Residence Inn in Beverly Hills this week asking Southern Californians to consider moving Down Under.
With an economy heading into its 15th year of growth and an aging population, Australia has more jobs than qualified applicants. This year, the government expanded its annual quota of skilled migrants by 20,000 over 2005.
"Australia is a victim of its own success," Pryor told a small crowd who joined him for coffee, tea and visa advice Monday morning.
To illustrate the size of his problem, Pryor pulled out a 14-page list of professions eligible for work visas, including 70 jobs that get priority. Attention: Chefs, hairdressers, mining engineers and registered midwives -- please move to the head of the line. People with substantial criminal records or tuberculosis and those over age 45, step back.
After stops in Europe and Asia, the Aussies brought their show to America. Pryor said he had received 1,600 responses -- including 200 on Tuesday -- to recent advertisements in The Times and on several major employment websites.
"It's rather incredible," he said.
Many of the enthusiastic job seekers attending the Beverly Hills seminar had visited Australia. Some were married to Australians and were ready to make the leap.
"I've traveled throughout the world, and Australia is one of the places that I felt I could live," said John Mendeola, a 43-year-old systems engineer from San Diego, who said he was looking for a job in Perth, his wife's hometown.
It isn't just Australia on the hunt for talent. Officials from Canada, Britain, Iceland, India and China are scouring the globe looking to fill job vacancies and jump-start new sectors of their economies. Some governments are using perks such as subsidized housing or education subsidies to persuade talented foreigners to relocate.
