The technology recruitment sector says changes to the temporary skilled worker 457 visa program requirements, introduced by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Brendan O’Connor, at the weekend do not address the real employment threats posed to local tech workers from offshoring and will have little impact on hiring practices.
The technology sector has been accused of taking advantage of loopholes in the immigration system to employ skilled workers from lower-cost countries such as India in preference to more expensive Australian workers. On Saturday, Mr O’Connor said changes were being instituted across industry sectors to ensure jobs for Australian workers.
However, experts from within the technology recruitment and offshore outsourcing industry said previous reforms had already tightened the system enough to make it too expensive to bring in much-needed skills from overseas. Some also warned that the changes meant it was more likely that some roles would now simply be outsourced instead.
The chief executive of the Australian and New Zealand IT contract and recruitment industry body ITCRA, Julie Mills, said the IT recruitment sector would welcome moves to institute consistent and effective reviews of employers across all sectors that were rorting 457 visas.
But she said on-hire arrangements of 457 visa workers were already rigorously restricted by the existing agreement, which limits the number of such visas companies in recruitment can bring into Australia. Ms Mills suggested that offshore outsourcing of skilled positions was more of a threat to tech jobs than 457 workers and that efforts would be better directed towards focusing on training.
“For all recruiters, including ICT, the opportunity to bring in skilled overseas workers requires a rigorous assessment of need via the 457 labour agreement process – so the changes being discussed, I would suggest are already entrenched in the process for recruitment companies,” she said.
“A bigger concern is the offshoring of ICT process and administration roles rather than the 457 visa program. The ICT sector and the contract and recruitment companies would always look to the local market across all states, but if the right skills are not available in the right place then projects cannot wait until the talent re-skills or graduates – particularly in IT which is often central to any infrastructure and business development at both a government and private enterprise level.”
The managing director of technology at recruitment firm Ambition, Andy Cross, said his company had stopped sponsoring workers on 457 visas when the system was last tightened up in 2009 as the process was too onerous.
However, he said tightening up the ability to bring in skilled workers went against the global nature of the IT industry and meant shortages of skilled workers in high demand areas would go unmet.
“With falling demand for undergraduate technology courses and an aging population, it’s obvious we can’t realistically expect to meet current or future demand with our current homegrown supply,” Mr Cross said.
“We probably need to be encouraging overseas applicants to meet market demand and support the technology industry. Supporting local resources first is admirable but perhaps the minister should be looking simultaneously at ways to actively dissuade Australian companies from continuing to outsource IT roles to cheaper cost bases overseas.”
A director at Mindfields, Mohit Sharma, said the changes to 457 rules would have little impact on the local IT jobs market as the outsourcing market had matured in the past five years to such an extent that most high-value work was performed by global teams at large IT companies.
“The IT industry is highly virtually globalised. How many Cloud specialists do AMP or ANZ have? They have none,” he said.
“There is a high demand for these skills, but numbers are very low. Offshoring of such roles will increase but not to low cost destinations.”
The technology sector has been accused of taking advantage of loopholes in the immigration system to employ skilled workers from lower-cost countries such as India in preference to more expensive Australian workers. On Saturday, Mr O’Connor said changes were being instituted across industry sectors to ensure jobs for Australian workers.
However, experts from within the technology recruitment and offshore outsourcing industry said previous reforms had already tightened the system enough to make it too expensive to bring in much-needed skills from overseas. Some also warned that the changes meant it was more likely that some roles would now simply be outsourced instead.
The chief executive of the Australian and New Zealand IT contract and recruitment industry body ITCRA, Julie Mills, said the IT recruitment sector would welcome moves to institute consistent and effective reviews of employers across all sectors that were rorting 457 visas.
But she said on-hire arrangements of 457 visa workers were already rigorously restricted by the existing agreement, which limits the number of such visas companies in recruitment can bring into Australia. Ms Mills suggested that offshore outsourcing of skilled positions was more of a threat to tech jobs than 457 workers and that efforts would be better directed towards focusing on training.
“For all recruiters, including ICT, the opportunity to bring in skilled overseas workers requires a rigorous assessment of need via the 457 labour agreement process – so the changes being discussed, I would suggest are already entrenched in the process for recruitment companies,” she said.
“A bigger concern is the offshoring of ICT process and administration roles rather than the 457 visa program. The ICT sector and the contract and recruitment companies would always look to the local market across all states, but if the right skills are not available in the right place then projects cannot wait until the talent re-skills or graduates – particularly in IT which is often central to any infrastructure and business development at both a government and private enterprise level.”
The managing director of technology at recruitment firm Ambition, Andy Cross, said his company had stopped sponsoring workers on 457 visas when the system was last tightened up in 2009 as the process was too onerous.
However, he said tightening up the ability to bring in skilled workers went against the global nature of the IT industry and meant shortages of skilled workers in high demand areas would go unmet.
“With falling demand for undergraduate technology courses and an aging population, it’s obvious we can’t realistically expect to meet current or future demand with our current homegrown supply,” Mr Cross said.
“We probably need to be encouraging overseas applicants to meet market demand and support the technology industry. Supporting local resources first is admirable but perhaps the minister should be looking simultaneously at ways to actively dissuade Australian companies from continuing to outsource IT roles to cheaper cost bases overseas.”
A director at Mindfields, Mohit Sharma, said the changes to 457 rules would have little impact on the local IT jobs market as the outsourcing market had matured in the past five years to such an extent that most high-value work was performed by global teams at large IT companies.
“The IT industry is highly virtually globalised. How many Cloud specialists do AMP or ANZ have? They have none,” he said.
“There is a high demand for these skills, but numbers are very low. Offshoring of such roles will increase but not to low cost destinations.”
No comments:
Post a Comment