Hospitality industry could receive blanket immigration agreement

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Created on Thursday, 02 February 2012 18:27

Written by Editorial staff

The local tourism industry contributes a significant amount to the Australian economy, with around $35 billion in funds making up the total over the last year alone.

However, with the rising need for workers in mining and resources, a large number of hospitality professionals are finding employment in related fields, servicing the needs of the growing population around these new projects.

The result of these shifts has been a deficit of 36,000 skilled and semi-skilled employees from the field - meaning that more local businesses are finding it hard to find quality staff.

On top of this, the number of international students travelling to Australia in recent years has been reduced - meaning a popular source of short-term labour has become less available.

In response to these difficulties, the minister for immigration and citizenship Chris Bowen and the minister for tourism Martin Ferguson have released a consultation paper that explores the possibility of a new labour agreement.

Dedicated to the hospitality and tourism sectors, the proposal sets out a template agreement that could be used by employers in these industries who are struggling to source staff members locally.

It lays out a range of common requirements that would need to be met by businesses before they would be allowed to start hiring international workers - including a number of factors not covered by labour agreements that are currently in use.

Experienced staff members such as chefs, bartenders, venue managers and professional waiters can be hard to source locally, with fierce competition between enterprises for the best and brightest in the industry.

Bowen asserted that these occupations - which may not be covered in other migration visa programs - could be included in a new blanket initiative.

"This template seeks a balance between upholding the standards of the visa system while giving employers easier access to workers whose skills are hard to find in Australia," asserted Bowen.

"Approved employers could nominate workers for temporary skilled subclass 457 visas using the template, enabling workers to be granted visas where they meet the requirements."

Ferguson said that the deployment of an agreement similar to the one in place for the mining industry could be of great assistance to tourism and hospitality businesses across the country.

"Research has found that there are already 36 000 vacancies in this industry and by 2015 another 56 000 workers will be required, particularly in regional areas," said Ferguson.