The Business Council of Australia (BCA) is reportedly lobbying for the elimination of labour market testing requirements, introduced by the former Labor Government amid claims of “widespread employer rorting”, which requires companies to prove they have attempted to recruit Australians to fill a job vacancy before nominating a foreign worker for a 457 visa. From The Australian:
In a new submission to a Productivity Commission inquiry into labour mobility, the Business Council calls for the rules to be scrapped because it was already costly to relocate overseas workers to Australia.
“These requirements increase employment costs without improving local employment outcomes. Indeed, by potentially inhibiting the expansion of growing businesses, overall Australian employment opportunities will be reduced,” the submission says.
AMMA executive director of industry Scott Barklamb said even though the “once-insatiable” demand for skilled labour had eased, there were still hundreds of billions of dollars worth of resources and related infrastructure projects in remote areas that needed workers…
“We would support the new government reversing the 2013 legislative changes, once again removing (labour market testing) from the 457 visa system and hopefully putting an end to this flawed approach to regulating skilled migration for good”.
I’ll admit that I have mixed feelings about 457 visas. With unemployment now at the highest level in four years, according to the ABS, and even worse according to Roy Morgan Research, overall labour shortages should have eased significantly (see next chart).
This view is also supported by the ABS’ labour underutilisation data, which shows underemployment at the highest level since 2002 (see next chart).
That said, there will always be specialist areas where labour shortgages exist and where local labour cannot be trained in a timely manner. Therefore, there needs to be some flexibility built into the 457 visa system to accomodate these types of workers.
In any event, with mining investment set to wind down over coming years, one wonders whether the rage over 457 visas is becoming yesterday’s war? We may soon be dealing with labour surpluses which, for the most part, could render the issue obsolete.
