Australian Immigration Daily News

As our readers may be aware, the Department of Home Affairs announced an additional step for TSS nominations, requiring employers to utilise an additional platform “jobactive” to satisfy Labour Market Testing component of the nomination application.  Whilst the introduction of this additional requirement was not applied retrospectively, the requirement is applicable to all nominations lodged on or after 1 October 2020.

What is jobactive?

According the to the website (https://jobsearch.gov.au/), the platform allows employers as well as job seekers to digitally connect.  Employers are able to browse through eligible candidates and job seekers are able to view available jobs.  The service is free to both employers as well as job seekers.

As part of the government’s initiative to bring down unemployment rates, Standard Business Sponsors must advertise the role using this platform for at least 28 days.

In September 2020, the Australian Government introduced new labour market testing measures for employer sponsored applications.

In addition to the 2 advertisements:

• the nominated position must be advertised on the Government’s jobactive website
• the jobactive advertisement must have included all of the information required to be included in the other 2 advertisements mentioned above
• jobactive advertisements are expected to have run for at least 4 weeks
• applications or expressions of interest for the advertised position must have been accepted for at least 4 weeks
• Note: advertising may have been undertaken by a third party if authorised to do so by the sponsor (for example, an associated entity or a contracted party, such as a recruitment agency) - there is no requirement that the sponsor placed the advertisement themselves

Evidence of a total of 3 advertisements, including an advertisement published on the Government’s jobactive website, must be provided at the time the nomination is lodged.

Practical impact on sponsors and visa holders

Whilst a requirement to place an advertisement on an additional platform appears to be relatively straight forward, there are some logistical issues which sponsors as well as prospective/existing visa holders should take into account:

• Once a sponsor submits a copy of the advertisement, it can take several days to be approved, therefore the date of submission versus the date the ad appears on the website will be different.  This is important particularly if the visa holder’s current visa is due to expire (i.e. you may not have enough time to to advertise for 28 days!)
• It is employer’s responsibility to ensure that ALL requisite information is provided at the time the advertisement is submitted (for example, location).  It is therefore important to ensure the submitted advertisement eventually goes live
• A number of technical glitches have been observed including a break in advertising (the period is broken into two parts if incorrect duration is selected)
• The advertisement is re-routed to a different website, especially if there are hyperlinks within the job advertisement

Tips for Standard Business Sponsors

• Remember that you cannot count the date you submit the job advertisement for approval as the first day of advertising, it is not live until it is published
• Immediately contact the jobactive if you notice any issues (such as incorrect or missing information) as these may take longer to resolve and hence causing further delays
• Overall jobactive is a good platform, however a number features are somewhat technical.

We recommend reading this guide: https://jobsearch.gov.au/how-to-guide

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