Australian Permanent Residence:

Employment Nomination and Employment Sponsorship

Highly skilled applicants are in demand in Australia. When employers can't fill a vacancy from the local labour market or through training, they use the Employer Nomination Scheme (ENS) to nominate individuals for specific full-time positions.

• Overview
• Minimum Requirements - Employer Nomination Scheme
• Do it Right the First Time

Minimum Requirements

An application to remain permanently in Australia on skilled grounds involves two separate applications seeking the approval for:

· ENS application for a permanent appointment in Australia
· Visa application

1. ENS Application:

Basic requirements for the approval of an appointment are:

• The work requires a qualified skilled person
• The appointment is in Australia, permanent, genuine, full-time, and in a business operated by the nominator
• The employer provides adequate training for existing employees
• Either a suitable Australian citizen or permanent resident cannot be found for the position, or the employer is not required to seek a suitable person for the position in Australia
• The applicant is to be employed in accordance with relevant Australian standards for wages and working conditions

A sponsor normally is expected to test the Australian labour market by placing a series of advertisements in both national and metropolitan daily newspapers or the like. In certain circumstances advertising may not be required.

However, to make this program more responsive to the needs of employers, labour market testing in the ENS category has been waived for positions that involve skills in demand such as ICT, accounting and nursing. Further changes have recently been made to enable those without an employer willing to nominate can lodge an Expression of Interest under Skillselect for employer nominated migration before meeting the normal stream requirements. Because of Australia's flexible approach to change of status on-shore, an increasing percentage of employer-nominated cases are from people already in Australia (for instance, people that employers have already tested for suitability to their needs).

2. Visa Application:

Basic requirements include:

• Application must be made within 6 months of the approval of the appointment to which it relates and decided within 12 months of that approval.
• The applicant must be nominated by an employer for an approved appointment to a position in their business, and be a suitably skilled person in relation to the appointment, and unless classes of persons apply (e.g., been employed by their nominating employer as the holder of a Subclass 457 visa for at least the four(4) years immediately before applying, certain occupations and industries, and other limited exceptions) be under age of 50, and have vocational English limited exceptions apply).

As of July 2012, under the ENS, the permanent Employer Nomination visa is Subclass 186.

Visa holders are required to work full-time and generally remain with their sponsoring employer for at least three years.

Back to top

Do it Right the First Time

As in every application, great care is required in preparing supporting documents for both the ENS and visa application.

The strategy to be adopted depends on the strength of each case. For an application made in Australia, the ENS and visa applications can be lodged at the same time; or the ENS application can be lodged and processed first, followed by the visa application only when and if the ENS application has been approved.

To apply in Australia, an applicant must hold an eligible substantive visa (limited exceptions apply) and must be physically present in Australia at the time of decision. Where a visa application is made outside Australia, the applicant must be outside Australia at the time of decision.

Note: during the 2009-2010 Migration Program year 981 Employer Sponsored visas were refused and 41,993 [including subclasses 119, 120, 121, 855, 856 and 857] granted (statistics provided by DIAC).

Avoid taking unnecessary risks, and save time and expense by working with Beyderwellen & Company. Complete our Online Australian Immigration Assessment Form to discover how you can migrate to Australia.

View our sample Client Case Studies to see how our clients have successfully migrated to Australia.

Back to top