Internal Affairs ‘aware to fix’ Australian skilled visa backlog

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

Today’s sponsored employee visa program is complex, expensive and time-consuming for small businesses to use, an Interior Department official says, as the government pushes reforms to the immigration system that it says will help better for SMEs.

Speaking at the SmallBizWeek conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, Chris Montgomery, an industry and regional outreach officer for the department’s skilled visa program, said about 25% of the temporary worker visa program is used by small businesses.

But smaller companies face significant challenges when recruiting international talent, he said, particularly when persistent domestic labor shortages are draining employers.

“People are desperate for staff and many companies are looking to immigration as a solution, possibly for the first time,” he said, noting that the influx of migrant workers has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

“The workers seem to have disappeared,” he said. “We don’t know where they have gone.”

The department is aware of how long it can take for small businesses to sponsor the right worker, he said.

It can take between 11 and 13 months to process an Employment Nomination Scheme subclass 186 visa, according to the Department of the Interior website.

Regional businesses seeking workers through the qualifying employer-sponsored regional (provisional) visa, subclass 494, can wait up to 16 months.

About 90% of short-term applications for the Temporary Shortage of Skills visa, subclass 482, are processed within 70 days, the department says.

The time lag is “something we’re very conscious of fixing,” Montgomery said.

Complexity is also a confounding factor, Montgomery said, acknowledging that “visas are not easy” for small businesses to navigate in their current form.

Recognition of the difficulties that small companies face when looking for international talent echoes a draft migration strategy by Home Secretary Clare O’Neil, who is calling for significant reforms in the prosecution apparatus.

The draft strategy, published in April, states that the current system “lacks direction, is complex, inflexible and inefficient, and fails to deliver for Australians and migrants.”

Major reform proposals include abolishing “outdated and inflexible” visa occupation lists, which the government believes do not reflect the current and future needs of the workforce.

Beyond calls to improve processing times and reduce complexity, the draft also suggests that advance visa processing fees should be phased out for small businesses.

Visa application fees run into the thousands of dollars, and the 2023-2024 federal budget promises to increase some application fees by 6-40% starting July 1 of this year.

Without asking small businesses to charge smaller upfront fees, the draft strategy suggests “exploring a change to employer monthly fees,” allowing small business applicants to smooth out those costs over a longer period of time. .

The good news for Australian employers, Montgomery said, is that Australia remains a top destination for international graduates in disciplines like engineering, even as broader labor shortages and migration fights persist.

“There are so many people who want to live and work in Australia,” he said.

This article is reproduced from our sister publication SmartCompany.

READ MORE:

Despite expanded visa policy, some will be denied essential services