Although there has been a plunge in the demand for sc457 visa workers with grants down by 25% from last year,  there remain some 108,870 people with 457 visas in Australia as of June 30 this year, up slightly on the same time last year, according to a new Immigration Department report.

A report in the Herald Sun estimates that 'at least one million such migrants have work rights, including 457 visa holders'. However, the report conveniently does not elaborate this point any further. Their figures would probably include students on limited work rights who actually contribute some $15 billion dollars to the economy by choosing to spend their education dollars in Australia over the UK and US. They in fact create work in the Australian economy.

The report also notes that across Australia about 52,000 people got 457 visas in 2013-14, with cook being the number one job (2720 visas), followed by cafe or restaurant manager (2070), computer programmer (1900), marketing specialist (1470), university lecturer (1290) and GP (1270).

In Victoria, there were 960 cooks approved, 560 programmers, 430 cafe or restaurant managers, 370 lecturers and 350 IT business analysts, said the department’s Subclass 457 Quarterly Report.

Nationally, top source countries for 457 visa grants were India (23.3 per cent), UK (18.3 per cent) and Ireland (7.2 per cent).

Between May and June this year the number of applications rose by 9 per cent to 5010.

If you need to meet training benchmarks for 457 visa sponsorship then why not try Australian National Training Fund.