Finally, some good news on the immigration front with Labor vowing to force businesses to advertise locally before reaching for a 457 foreign worker. From News.com.au:
Federal Labor wants to force employers to advertise locally before seeking temporary foreign workers.
They will be required to advertise job opportunities for a minimum of four weeks as part of a shake-up of the 457 visa program.
People on temporary work visas were getting opportunities which should be going to permanent Australian citizens, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said while announcing the policy on Friday.
“We’re very committed to making sure Australians are not missing out on job opportunities,” he told reporters in Darwin.
The move would help address under-employment and the jobless rate in Australia, Mr Shorten said.
Labor would also increase sponsor fees to employ temporary skilled workers from overseas.
Workplaces where more than half the workforce was made up of 457 visa holders would pay an extra $1500 for each additional visa if they apply for more temporary workers…
Great policy.
There is little doubt that the 457 visa system is being abused. The 457 system is intended be used by employers in areas of skills shortages – i.e. to fill genuine labour market gaps. However, the Department of Employment’s latest skills shortages report found that “skill shortages continue to be limited in the Australian labour market”.
Given that skills shortages are yesterday’s problem, why are 457 visas still being handed-out like candy?
As shown in the below table, there were 33,340 primary 457 visas handed-out in the nine months to March 2016:
There were also 97,770 primary 457 visa workers residing in Australia as at March 2016 (add secondary 457 visa holders and the number is closer to 200,000):
Moreover, over 80% of 457 workers – i.e. those working under the skill level 1 (so-called “Managers and Professionals”) and skill level 2 (so-called “Associate Professionals”) – are not subject to any labour market testing to determine whether an Australian can do the job first.
To make matters worse, the overwhelming majority of 457 visas are not going to workers in remote regional communities, but rather big cities like Sydney and Melbourne. Many are also working in professions that are not consider to be particularly “skilled”, in short supply, or critical to the economy, such as cooks/chefs, cafe/restaurant staff, and customer service (see next table).
So, rather than relieving genuine skills shortages, which are next to non-existent nowadays, the whole 457 visa system has become a rort.
Exemptions from labour market testing have grown from around 20% initially to the outrageous level of over 80% currently.
Exemptions were originally to be granted for clearly defined skills shortages as identified by the then DEEWR (now Department of Employment), such as for doctors in rural areas and for short term skill-specific undertakings (e.g: Asian chef’s for expo’s, etc). Instead we now have Australia’s pubs importing kitchen hands on 457’s in significant numbers with government approval. Virtually all of these jobs could be filled locally with a little bit of training.
In another good move, Labor has vowed to force labour hire companies to be licensed to help protect workers. From The Guardian:
Labor has proposed that labour hire companies should be required to have a licence to operate, in a bid to crack down on worker exploitation…
If Labor is elected it would legislate so that from 1 July 2017 it would be unlawful for labour hire companies to operate without a licence and for other firms to knowingly or recklessly use an unlicensed company.
Labor’s employment spokesman, Brendan O’Connor, said the licensing regime was necessary because “recent examples of wrongdoing by dodgy labour hire companies that … rip off workers is tarnishing employers that do the right thing, and is undercutting wages and conditions”…
The labour hire regime would be overseen by an inspectorate within the fair work ombudsman. It will be paid for by a licence fee.
Given dodgy labour hire companies are behind much of the exploitation of foreign workers, Labor’s policy makes a lot of sense.
