Business Visas Australia

From 15 May 2009 the list of skilled gazetted occupations for potential subclass 457 applicants was revised to only include occupations in Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO) major groups 1 to 4.   These occupations related to clerical and service workers, intermediate prodcution and transport workers.It is the view of the Department of Immigration (www.immi.gov.au) that this change is most likely to affect employers based in regional Australia as they won’t be able to nominate particular activities which may correspond with tasks represented by skilled occupations in ASCO major groups 5 to 7.

The main reason for changing this list of occupations is to protect Australian jobs for Australians given the current economic recession.

The immigration website www.immi.gov.au has some very good FAQs for anyone who currently holds a subclass 457 visa or has made an application and is unsure as to what their status is given the new changes to the list of occupations.

http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/asco5-7-faq.htm

All the best,
Mege Dalton