Around 40,000 Pacific Island workers approved to work in Australia to fill labour shortages

The composition of Australia's regional workforce is set to change after the federal government announced an increase to the annual migration intake and set up a working group to tackle labour shortages.

A group of 40,000 Pacific workers have successfully proceeded through the application round and are on their way to Australia to work in the agricultural industry. Credit: Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme

Around 40,000 workers from the Pacific Islands are vetted and ready to migrate to Australia to help address farm labour shortages, the agriculture minister says.

After two days of discussions on jobs and skills in Canberra last week, 36 "concrete plans" to tackle Australia's economic challenges were established.

They included a lift to the annual migration intake as well as establishing a working group of agricultural sector, union and government representatives in a bid to tackle the labour shortage crisis.

These two announcements, along with a commitment to fast-track the number of fee-free TAFE places, will make a significant difference to the regional Australian workforce, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said.

"The reality is that agriculture is not the only industry with a massive worker shortage," he told Sky News on Sunday.

"There's a range of measures that we've committed to that will start right now that will have immediate benefit for agriculture as we then work on some of the more long-term issues through that working group."

In addition to workers already in Australia, current estimates show about 40,000 Pacific Island workers who are vetted and ready to migrate for work, Mr Watt said.

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"We also want to make sure that we're encouraging locals to take up careers in agriculture and providing them with the skills that are needed to do so," he said.

Following the summit the government also announced Australians on the aged and veterans pensions will be able to earn up to $4,000 in extra income a year without losing their benefits.

But opposition spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the announcement was a "half-baked attempt" at a proposal previously made by the former Liberal-National government.

"The adoption of (now Opposition Leader) Peter Dutton's policy to allow veterans and pensioners to work an extra day per week, employers had been screaming for that," she told Sky News.

"What do we get from (Prime Minister Anthony) Albanese after the summit? A very strange half-baked attempt to go halfway towards realising what Mr Dutton had put on the table.

"(It's) a dismal failure and a great disappointment to businesses."