457 visa approvals way down
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457 visa grants for Developer Programmers are down 41.5% and Software Engineer are down 18.1%.
Source: Temporary Work Skilled data, July to September quarter 2017, data.gov.au
Those stats confirm what it feels like in the market - that employer appetite to sponsor is lower than ever. There is uncertainty around what’ll happen come March 2018 so I can see how we got here.
Having said that, with much less competition for developers who need sponsorship, employers who do sponsor have a huge, albeit temporary advantage.
It’s worth highlighting the article’s conclusion:
Lastly, it is possible DIBP has changed their approach to processing visas, resulting in a larger backlog of pending applications. Unfortunately this information is not available for public analysis.
We’ll soon find out, but if I were a betting man I’d say the decline is due to a lower volume of applications.
…and here’s the usual disclaimer that I’m not a migration agent and that this isn’t migration advice.
