As our clients may recall, the (then) minister for immigration managed to pass a bill through federal parliament on its last day of sitting before the election. This bill introduced a number of changes to the 457 scheme, some of which have already been implemented.
The most publicised change in this bill has not yet come into place, which is the requirement for 457 standard business sponsors to undertake Labour Market Testing (LMT) before they can sponsor a new employee under the 457 scheme. The minister has this week tabled the required documents for this to begin.
Labour Market Testing will become a requirement for new 457 applications from the 24th November 2013.
There will be some exemptions to the requirement, however a lot of positions sponsor-able under the 457 will need to first be advertised in public forums before they can be offered to foreign workers looking to apply for a 457. More detail on the specific requirements of advertising is yet to be released and we do not yet know of any detailed requirements. However, consultation with the minister and department of immigration and border protection by the MIA makes us believe that it will not be an overly onerous requirement, and we are expecting online job search websites and newspapers to be acceptable.
The minister will be announcing positions that are exempted from this requirement as well as other reasons for exemption shortly, and we will send another update as soon as we can.
If you wish to avoid the requirement of LMT, you may need to lodge your nomination and application for the 457 before the 24th November 2013. Contact us if you require any further information.
