The department has announced that there will be a couple of changes that will come into effect from the 1st of July 2023. These changes will affect how employers will be able to sponsor workers from overseas. One of the biggest changes that may affect how you sponsor employees is the change in the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT). This is an increase of the threshold from $53,900 to $70,000. This will mean that the minimum salary that you can offer your potential employee will be $70,000 otherwise it would not meet this new requirement. This change comes as there has been a realisation and awakening that 90% of full-time salaries in Australia is higher than the current TSMIT since this threshold has been frozen since 2013.
It will therefore be an obligation upon you as a sponsor to maintain that your employees whom you have sponsored from overseas be paid a minimum salary of $70,000 or higher. Please note that the sponsorship obligation to pay sponsored employees the equal to or higher than an Australian employee in the same position remains. This means that employers still have to comply with the Annual Market Salary Rate (AMSR) requirements. Briefly, the AMSR requirement is how much you, as an employer, are paying the sponsored employee based on an assessment of what would be paid to an equivalent Australian employee, enterprise agreements or industrial awards or job advertisements for the last 6 months in the same location that the business is planning on hiring the employee. Should there be no equivalent worker but there is an enterprise agreement or industrial award, you must provide the following:
- the name of the agreement or award as recorded by the Fair Work Commission, where applicable
- the salary level or occupation group that applies to the nomination
If there are no equivalent workers, agreement or award, you must provide the following for You must determine and then show us what the AMSR is. Explain how you used relevant information to determine what the equivalent worker will be paid.
Therefore, employers need to be mindful of the new changes introduced by the Australian Government. Please note that the date for these changes is 1st July 2023. However, not all employees may be affected by this. There is a possibility that the department will have a list of exempt occupations which may not be affected by these changes. At this stage, Crystal Migration Legal Services has no further information regarding any further changes to the TSMIT or AMSR.