Skilling Australian Fund Acts & Labour Market Testing

For the last 13 months, we’ve all been waiting for the Australian Government to finish and implement all their proposed changes to the Employer Sponsored Migration scheme.

On 18 March 2018, the majority of legislative changes finally came into effect, including the introduction of the TSS (subclass 482) visa. However, the Skilling Australian Fund (SAF) was delayed in Parliament.

The SAF has now passed through Parliament and received Royal Assent on 22 May 2018.

It will come into effect from a date fixed by:

• Proclamation; or
• On the day after six months from 22 May 2018 (Potentially being 23 November 2018).

Our industry body has affirmed that the following nomination applications will be affected:

• Applications made on or after the commencement date; AND
• Applications made but not decided before the commencement date.

Unfortunately it appear they’ve made this Training Levy retrospective for current nomination applications that are lodged, but have not been decided by the commencement date.

We’ll keep you updated on when this commencement date is likely to occur and will of course advise all corporate clients whether their nomination application of their visa applicants will be affected by this charge.

In further news, the regulations pertaining to labour market testing have also been revised. The main changes include:

• Advertising must be within four months before a nomination is lodged; and
• Duration of advertising is now a minimum of four weeks (increased from 21 days)

As always, we encourage our corporate clients to have advertisements running on two national recruiting sites (SEEK, JobActive etc) to ensure there’s no delays in submitting nomination applications – these must run for a 28 day period, must confirm the job title, salary and duties and responsibilities.

If you have queries or concerns regarding the above, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our migration agents.