THE federal Government will continue to remove occupations from the skilled migration program, Immigration Minister Chris Evans says.

Bricklayers, plumbers, welders, carpenters and metal fitters are among the occupations taken off the critical skills list as demand for skilled labour falls in the building and construction sectors.

But health and medical, engineering and IT professionals, still in short supply, will remain on the list.

The government has announced that the skilled migration program intake will be cut by nearly 20,000 to 115,000 this financial year.

However, employers will still be able to sponsor migrant workers privately or through the 457 visa scheme, provided they can prove local labour is not available.

The critical skills list will remain under constant review , Senator Evans said.

"The government will remove occupations from the list if demand for those skills can be satisfied by local labour," he said in a statement on Monday.

The overwhelming message from business and industry is that Australia still needs to maintain a skilled migration program, he said.

But the program needs to be more targeted so that migrant workers are meeting skills shortages and not competing with locals for jobs, Senator Evans said.