Labour Market Testing (LMT) is an essential part of sponsored visas such as the 482 and 494 visas. It was introduced by the government in order to protect jobs for Australian citizens and permanent residents. The process of LMT is done during the nomination stage of a sponsorship. For most nominations, the position must be advertised for at least four weeks within the four month period immediately prior to lodging the nomination application. If an Australian citizen or permanent resident worker has been made redundant or retrenched from the nominated occupation within 4 months before lodging the nomination application, the advertising must have occurred since the date of the redundancy or retrenchment.
The department requires the position to be advertised on 3 different platforms, one of which must be Job Active and the other two on prominent job advertising platforms such as Seek or Jora. As an employer, you must ensure that the job and position description on the Job Active ad entails all the information required to be included in the other 2 advertisements.
Sponsoring Foreign Nationals?
The business bears ultimate responsibility for Labour Market Testing, which includes providing proof of why there were not any suitable Australian citizen or permanent resident candidates for this position and that you’ve made a genuine attempt to conduct LMT. Businesses must ensure that all your ads are consistently monitored.
If you are looking to sponsor an employee in the next 4 months, get in touch with CLM as Labour Marketing Testing can be a cumbersome process and therefore you will need to start preparing for any potential sponsorships now. There are many things that can go wrong if the process is not done properly, including but not limited to:
- Failure to ensure the advertisement has been running in accordance with requirements for the minimum 28 day period
- Inaccurate information or lack of information being displayed to advertise the position
- Tasks not aligned with the nominated position
- Insufficient evidence being retrieved throughout the process
- Terms and conditions advertised to the local market are significantly less favourable than those being offered to the nominee
Crystal Migration can fully manage the process on behalf of your business . This will ensure no mistakes and that satisfactory proof is provided on your behalf to allow the sponsorship to progress to its next stage.