Press Release
On-Hire Industry's First Roundtable with Government on 457's
Representatives of Australia's On Hire Industry, including peak bodies will
meet with DIAC and DEEWR this week in the first roundtable discussion on the
Government's recent changes to the 457 Visa Scheme. This includes the new Labour
Agreement template the Government has introduced for On Hire Companies. This
Agreement sets out their responsibilities and obligations not only to their overseas
sourced workforce, but also the local workforce and economy in terms of investment
in training and development.
The Industry Groups have been particularly vocal on the alleged impositions of
the Labour Agreement obligations if they wish to employ workers on 457 Visas.
This centres round a requirement to commit 2% of their wages bills to training
and development. As the Government states, this investment is part of the stated
goals of the 457 programme, where overseas skills should be utilised to re-skill
the local workforce and participants should also look to reinvest in the Australian
labour market as part of an overall strategy to address the skills shortage.
Industry Groups claim this is unworkable from a commercial perspective and that
it is financial unviable for Industry participants.
Sources in both the Government and Industry bodies acknowledge that there has
been large number of On-Hire Companies apply for Labour Agreements under the
new Scheme, however compliance has been an issue and to-date only a handful of
Companies have been awarded Agreements. There are some On-Hire Companies that
have seemed to be able to meet the obligations of the Labour Agreement. ICT
recruiter, 3W Consulting Contracting Recruitment Pty Limited, was the first
ICT On Hire company to be approved under the new Scheme. This contracting company
sources skilled ICT professionals for Australian clients from the global market,
particularly from the Philippines.
Andrew McCarroll, CEO of 3W says the Company took a positive approach to the
Government's new Scheme and built the training and development obligations into
its business strategy. “We looked at our obligations under the Agreement and
decided that engaging an overseas workforce would meet a number of goals. This
included solving our clients' skilled labour shortage problems and at the same
time re-investing some of the profit we make on this Team to develop our local
skills base. And it's working. Since being approved for the Labour Agreement,
we been able to commit ourselves to an Australian Apprenticeship Scheme focused
on ICT. In the last month we have employed 6 full time IT apprentices who will
receive a combination of on-the-job and formal training over the next two years.
“
Industry and Government's first meeting this Friday will look not only at the
Labour Agreement mechanism, but also the process of approving 457 Visas. Whatever
the outcome, many labour market observers note that Industry and Government
need a cohesive plan to address what is estimated to be a skills shortage of
around 240,000 skilled workers by 2016. Given every western country in the world
is facing similar scenarios, the demand for overseas skilled workers for these
countries is only going to intensify. Australia is in a fiercely competitive
global skills market. It could very well be out bid by other countries for many
skilled overseas workers and will need to look at a broader strategy including
greater investment in training and development for its local talent pool.
For more information on 3W Consulting Contracting and Recruitment Pty Limited,
contact as follows:
Andrew McCarroll
Joint Chief Executive Officer and Director
Telephone 1 300 857 773
Mobile 0437 712 373
Email: andrew.mccarroll@
Web: www.3w.com.au
