Two-thirds of 457 visa workers have secured jobs that did not have to be advertised to Australians.

There has been a long debate about Australia’s reliance on overseas workers, and new Immigration Department statistics reveal just one in three of the temporary business sponsored work visas granted last year was subject to ‘labour market testing’ to prove no Australian could do the job.  Figures also revealed that one in every twenty working holiday makers received a 457 visa last year.

The Immigration Department expects to grant 241,100 working holiday visas this ­year. Assistant Minister for Immigration Michaelia Cash has defended the number, challenging unemployed Australians to do the work instead. ‘The reason our fruit gets picked sometimes, unfortunately, is backpackers,’ she said. ‘It would be great if some of those people out on the dole picked fruit.’

The department granted 68,481 new 457 visas during 2012-13 — half of them to short-term migrants already living in Australia, including 12,860 backpackers.

To read a full article on this subject, see here.

Written by AUREC Human Capital Solutions. Find information on their working holiday visa services here.