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Immigration Daily News Surprising shift in attitude toward foreign IT professionals on sc457 visas.
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Surprising shift in attitude toward foreign IT professionals on sc457 visas.
ClicksIT Recruitment annual recruitment survey has found that although Australia’s information technology sector is expected to expand slightly this year allowing companies to increase staffing levels, employers are saying that they will be looking to hire local staff and reduce their reliance on sc457 workers.
In what the industry sees as a surprising shift in employer’s attitude, IT companies are expected to be turning to temporary workers to fill their staffing needs this year according to a report on itwire.com.
The survey found that IT companies are forecasting profit rises of between 11% and 20% as organisations have put in place plans to increase their IT budgets and IT professionals staffing levels.
“This growth is due to an increase in projects that focus on digital transformation, cloud uptake and refreshing core systems” Ben Wood, the Managing Director of Clicks IT Recruitment told itwire.com.
“The IT role most in demand is business analyst, which traditionally is among the first skill hired at the start of a project, indicating a strong pipeline of project work,” noted Mr Woods.
However companies are not willing to take on staff permanently as the IT sector on the whole remains relatively weak. So the preference at the moment is for flexible staffing arrangements.
This is expected them to shift to local labour as they shun permanent jobs and indicate a clear preference for contractors. Mr Wood notes that “organisations looking to hire permanents are less than half the level of five years ago.”
Mr Wood says the “significant reduction in plans to hire IT workers on 457 Visas – down from 12% of respondents in 2014 to 4% this year,” was a surprising finding in the survey given the general rise expected in the hiring of IT professionals.
Comments
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Sunday, 01 February 2015The problem is the 457 is adding employment pressure on local candidates with same skills and competiting unfairly with local workers as outsourcing companies gives priority to this type of IT worker who they can control better ( on a 457 you are tight to your sponsor for I believe at least 2 years or more) also there is an additional issue which is now companies have offshore teams meaning that they don't need the work to be done in Australia and can setup a team in India, Vietnam , China at lower cost and use technology to get daily update on progress. They can do that as they have the support of their customer who always want cheaper services and don't really care who is being employed to do it.
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Sunday, 01 February 2015
Overseas IT support is a different industry from our domestic 457 personnel agencies. Ireland and Scotland captured this industry in the 1980s and held it until India pushed them out of first the lower end (circa 1995) and later the middle end (circa 2002). The upper end is still in Ireland and Scotland simply because of the ease of communication between North America and the UK/Ireland, and the Euro Zone tax structure) and because of the general financial slumps after the dot-com crash and then the 2008 debacle. Now the Philippines are picking up some of India's middle tier IT. Vietnam is starting too, but it is still very much an outsider. China does not have the massive expertise that India has. It needs its people working in its own expanding economy.
Australians made the choice three decades ago to forgo IT studies along with math, science, and engineering. It was a fundamental error in successive government's education funding. The same is true of the USA.
There are no current statistics that support a statement that says, in effect, that we have a burgeoning group of native IT experts that are biting at the bit to get jobs but are being pushed aside by 457 holders or by personnel companies shunting their own 457 holders from place to place. I cannot say--looking only at our government statistics--that given two equally qualified candidates, one on a 457 and one a home grown Australian, an employer will choose one or the other. There may be anecdotal evidence, but it's just that: anecdotal. -
Monday, 02 February 2015
The creeping of the TSMIT has affected employer sentiment for lower level roles.
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With respect, this analysis focuses on the pinprick in the paper instead of the whole. IT companies want casuals and short term part timers because of economic conditions. There are still shortages of top IT employees. However, no one wants to carry the high paid middle to upper tier staff for the same reasons that the Commonwealth is shedding many of those positions. More to the point, carrying any full time IT staff is an unwanted burden. The best people switch employers for an extra 10 cents an hour (a bit of hyperbole). Consequently, most of the better paid positions are on contract through personnel companies that hire 457 workers and bill out for them as contractors. I have seen no change in the trend other than a slight shrinking in Indian IT workers and a growth in South African and UK/Ireland workers.
Clicks IT is a great company, but it might have been better if you had included a thorough survey of other members of ITCRA (Information Technology Contracting and Recruitment Association). I am sure that what Mr Wood said was correct, but you cannot quote him in isolation.
Cheers.