News article written by Corbett Communications. The statements made or opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Engineers Australia.
While high numbers of vacancies exist for ICT support and test engineers across Australia, particularly in NSW, Victoria and the ACT, according to the Department of Employment’s April 2016 Vacancies Report just released, the number of engineers working on 457 visas has been “detrimental” to domestic engineers. The report covers trends in job vacancies for engineers across Australia to the end of March 2016 and includes statistics for those on 457 temporary visas.
“These numbers [for ICT] are well above the numbers recorded for electronics and telecommunications engineers, but it is difficult to determine how many of these occupations were engineering specific,” the report stated.
Electrical engineering vacancies recorded reasonably high numbers back in 2007 through to 2012 before a dramatic decline, according to the Department of Employment’s report. In March 2012 there were 874 vacancies which dropped to just 341 vacancies a year later, continuing to fall to just 163 vacancies in March 2016.
While the majority of 457 engineers are working in WA and NSW and the number has dropped from 8349 in 2014/15 to 5703 at 31/12/15, it was noted in the report that the number of engineers working on 457 visas has increased in some occupations. There were 755 software engineers on the visas in 2008-09 where there are now 1386. There were no computer network and systems engineers, telecommunications engineers, tele-network engineers or telecom field engineers with 457 visas in 2008-09 but there are now 261, 33, 42 and 25, respectively. However, the number of electronics engineers on the visas dropped in the same period from 248 to 89 last year.
“A cautious interpretation of the evidence suggests that the intent of temporary migration (that is, a fall in the number of engineers employed on temporary 457 visas), has and is occurring, but with a substantial lag following the deterioration of the engineering labour market,” the report stated.
“The policy may be helpful to employers when they need to respond to skill shortages quickly, but it has been detrimental to domestic engineers when the labour market softened and more engineers on subclass 457 visas remained in employment than expected.”
It also noted that, “457 visa holders are not subject to skills assessment as is the case for applicants for permanent visas”. The majority of engineers on 457 temporary visas are working in NSW, WA and Victoria.
These statistics are against a backdrop of engineering vacancies which have generally remained at low levels since 2015 after the deterioration in numbers post-GFC in 2012, with a slight drop in vacancies from December 2015 to March 2016.
Further analysis of national and state numbers can be found on the EA website.