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Immigration Daily News Greater scrutiny of sc457 visa applications leading to fall in the number of grants?
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Greater scrutiny of sc457 visa applications leading to fall in the number of grants?
The number of 457 applications surged 15.3% in the year ending March 2015 but the number of actual grants slipped by over 4.1% according to the latest statistics released by the department of immigration.
There were 40,870 subclass 457 primary visa applications lodged in that time, an increase of 15.3 per cent from 35,440 lodged in the same period in the previous year.
Developer Programmers represented the largest occupation of total primary visa grants (4.9 per cent), a 39.5 per cent increase from the same period in the previous year. Cooks recorded the second largest primary visa grants (4.5 per cent), followed by Café or Restaurant Managers (3.9 per cent), a respective decrease of 18.9 per cent and 11.8 per cent when compared to the same period.
The top three sponsor industries for primary applications granted were accommodation and food services (37%), IT (31%), and professional, scientific and technical services (27%).
India was the top country of origin for sc457 workers. Almost half the number of grants were to applicants from India (24.3 per cent), the United Kingdom (17.5 per cent) and the People’s Republic of China (6.7 per cent). According to the figures around 25% of 457 visa holders are foreign students and travellers.
Given that unemployment rate in Australia is sitting above 6%, the unions have led a campaign against foreign labour despite industry groups saying that the sc457 visa is used to fill actual skill gaps in Australia. The DIBP has however been steadily increasing its scrutiny of sc457 applications in recent times.
Latest DIBP figures revealed that the number of employers sanctioned over the year was higher, at 15 per cent – many for ‘minor-administrative problems’. The government targeted some 4000 sponsors over the year for sc457 compliance issues.
Last month, the Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration started the investigating an overhaul of the 457 visa system to determine which occupations should be culled or added to the 650-long list for the sponsored migration scheme.
The number of primary visa holders on the 457 visa in Australia on 31 March 2015 was 106,750.
Comments
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Wednesday, 22 July 2015All of my applications have been processed in 14 -21 days. I received an approval yesterday for an application that was lodged 18 days ago. I find the delays happen when more information is requested and the application seems to join some mystery queue waiting for another case officer.
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Wednesday, 22 July 2015
We too are experiencing long delays of our 457 applications when extra information is requested. Despite providing the information within a day or two of the request and clicking on the tab to let Immi know the information has been submitted, weeks later we are still waiting for finalisation....
Immigration blog
Is anyone else experiencing unusual delays in the processing of 457 applications???
We have some applications that seem to have come to a grinding halt for no apparent reason, and no explanation is being given other than to say we will be advised in due course...