Labour Agreement

What is a Labour Agreement?

A Labour Agreement (LA) is a formal arrangement between an Australian employer with the Department of Home Affairs to allow approved businesses to bring in skilled overseas workers. The business will have to show that there is a skill shortage in the Australian labour market for such skills and the standard temporary/permanent visa programs (e.g. Subclass 482, 186 or 187) do not cater for such skills.

LA allows an Australian business to negotiate a specified number of positions for overseas workers which directly reflects and responds to the identified and emerging shortages within the Australian labour market. They are generally in effect for five years.

What is the Application Process?

The application for Labour Agreement can be lodged online, similar to applying for a standard business sponsorship.

There are 5 types of Labour Agreements, with requirements as follows:

+ Type 1: Company-Specific labour agreements?

This is a direct negotiation between the business and the Government for occupations that are not within any of the industry templates below, relevant project or designated area migration agreement. The terms and conditions of a company-specific agreement are considered on a case-by-case basis.

+ Type 2: Global Talent Scheme (GTS) agreements

It is a new pilot scheme which aims to bring and import skills to help Australia in combating the increasing global competition for high-tech skills and talent and cannot be filled by Australian workers and through other existing visa schemes. For more information please refer to our Global Talent Scheme page.

+ Type 3: Industry labour agreements

An industry labour agreement provides fixed terms and conditions agreed to by the Minister in consultation with key industry stakeholders, specific to an industry sector. Generally, an industry agreement is established when the Department has received a number of similar submissions from a specific industry, showing that there is ongoing labour shortages within that industry. For industry labour agreement, no further concessions can be considered, other than the concessions already incorporated in the industry agreement. Currently, there are 7 industry templates in place;

  • On-hire industry
  • Meat industry (for meat processing establishments)
  • Minister of Religion
  • Restaurant (Fine-Dining) (for Cooks and Chefs)
  • Dairy Industry (for Senior Dairy Cattle Farm Worker)
  • Pork Industry (for Senior Stockperson (Piggery))
  • Fishing industry

+ Type 4: Designated Area Migration Agreements (DAMA) [insert hyperlink to DAMA]

Similar to Company Specific Labour Agreement, the DAMA is for businesses in designated areas and it requires the endorsement from the Designated Area Representatives. It provides flexibility for specific designated areas in Australia to respond to their unique economic and labour market conditions. There is currently only one DAMA in place to cover the Northern Territory (NT). For more information please refer to our Designated Area Migration Agreements (DAMA) page [insert hyperlink to DAMA]

+ Type 5: Project Agreements

Project companies can access a project deed of agreement to address situations where facing a genuine shortage of suitably skilled Australian workers during the construction phase of infrastructure or resource development projects.

+ How to Access Labour Agreement?

Businesses will have to submit a strong business case to the Department of Home Affairs to assess the agreement suitability such as:

  • labour market need
  • current government policy or programs
  • requests for concessions for lower minimum salary level, skilled occupations, English competency level and whether the employer was previously assessed as having poor commitment to employment and training of Australians.

Further to providing a strong business case, businesses must include information on how the company will undertake the following:

  • Ensure that the variation to the English requirement will not pose a workplace health and safety risk;
  • Ensure access to workplace relations protections;
  • Ensure overseas workers can participate in the community;
  • Ensure overseas workers can transfer skills to Australian workers;
  • Ensure that the English language skills of overseas workers are able to be improved.

The service standard for negotiating a LA is approximately 3 months. However, the LA may take 9 months or more to finalise if there is no template available.

What We Like About This Visa?

Some of the main advantages of labour agreements include:

  • Sponsoring overseas workers for occupation that are not in the eligible occupation lists for standard TSS subclass 482 visa programme.

  • Negotiating concessions on English language requirements, skill level and wages for the nominees. These concessions are not available via the standard TSS subclass 482 sponsorship program.

  • Less stringent assessment on the nomination application once the labour agreement is in place.

  • No application fee is payable to negotiate for a labour agreement

Client Testimonials

….we call it Support Network

As navigating through the immigration law process may be difficult, our former clients have agreed to share their experiences through telephone chats, emails and meeting in person.

These are their stories…

What Questions Do Migration Agents Ask Our Accredited Specialists

  1. Under what business structure, can a job placement company, apply to be a sponsor with the sole purpose of charging a fee to visa applicants? And is there a method which would allow the sponsor to place the visa applicant with another unrelated business?

  2. How can employers charge a payment to the visa applicants in exchange to sponsor, without being caught under the immigration offence ‘cash for visa’?

  3. How many types of visas (including streams), can a Temporary Activities Sponsor benefit from, in sponsoring more candidates? And are there any difference in the sponsorship obligation?

  4. Can a visa applicant pay for costs related to the visa applicant? or must the Sponsor pay for all costs? How do I explain & educate my client, a large company who does not wish to pay for any costs for the sponsorship because the Director feels that the visa applicant has more to benefit than the company.

  5. In what circumstances will a visa applicant lose their right to appeal a refusal?