ITPA threatens to ‘out’ abusers of 457 visa scheme

Organisation wants more transparency around 457 visas

The IT Professionals Association (ITPA), which represents some 7000 IT workers in systems administration and IT support roles, has called for greater transparency in the 457 visa scheme. The organisation says it has evidence that the scheme is being abused to hire people on lower salaries and into roles that could easily be filled locally.

ITPA wants the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to publish details — including salaries paid — of organisations hiring workers on 457 visas in the roles of systems administrator and IT support.

It has threatened to ‘out’ any organisation that it can demonstrate has abused the 457 visa scheme, and has submitted a freedom of information request for details on the companies getting 457 visas, including for what positions and how much people are being paid.

The organisation’s CEO, Martin Hale, says he wants ITPA members to advise him of examples of alleged abuses they encounter. “If any claims are substantiated, we intend to alert the immigration department. If the identified 457 abuses are not rectified we will ‘name and shame’ the IT organisations involved to our 7000 members and the media,” Hale said.

He told Computerworld that anecdotal evidence from members was strong. “We asked our members and we got a massive response. A lot were not prepared to name names because of fear of reprisals.They did not want to be a whistleblower, but we have three that look credible,” he said.

“We will have to investigate these. We will approach the employers and if they don’t fix it we will publish some actual instances.”

He said there were no checks on how companies used, or abused, the 457 visa scheme: “Companies have to stipulate that they have advertised a position and were unable to find anyone. There is certainly no checking by associations to see whether those claims are valid or not.”

The ITPA’s move comes in the wake of a Sydney Morning Herald report in December that said the NSW government had outsourced a number of roles to multinational companies, which had hired 32 workers on 457 visas. A follow up article in February claimed the government had laid off a total of 200 workers and said that that it was solely up to its contractors to determine whether roles could be filled by locally.

Massive rise in IT 457 visas

In the absence of any specific data on the 457 scheme and in support of its claims, ITPA says data extracted from the federal government’s Data.gov.au website shows that while the number of 457 visas issued over the last decade (excluding IT) has risen by just 2 per cent, there has been a 136 per cent rise in IT 457 visas.

“Breaking down the numbers further to specific entry level occupations such as systems administration and IT support reveals that the growth rate for 457 visas granted blows out by over 480 percent over the decade of 2005/06 - 2015/16,” ITPA says.

Hale said these figured suggested many local IT organisations appeared to be using 457 visas to hire international staff to work in entry-level IT support positions rather than hiring and developing local graduates.

“Traditionally, IT support roles have been one of the main entry points for IT graduates to get a career started in the industry”, Hale said.

“With the growing number of people now being brought in on 457 visas to undertake these roles it is no surprise local IT graduates cannot find work, and that the number of students studying IT degrees at Australian tertiary institutions has dropped in the last decade.”

He added: “We are also very concerned about the growing number of IT organisations that appear to be exploiting the 457 visa system to displace local workers with internationally-recruited IT staff on much lower wages than would be otherwise applicable.

“The ITPA understands that IT is a growth industry and that therefore there is some need to supplement local candidates with suitably qualified internationals for some specialist roles. However, the health services sector is also growing and the number of 457 visas granted to health professionals (doctors, nurses etc.) has decreased by over 20 percent in the same ten year period.”

IT bodies lack lobbying clout

Hale suggested that the issue of 457 abuse was a particular problem in the IT industry because its industry bodies lacked significant membership numbers, and hence lobbying power.

“This would never happen in accounting or the medical fraternity. Their associations would be all over it,” he said. “The are much more powerful. If the CPA goes to government with a concern, they have 120,000 members. It is the same with the Australian Medical Assocation, they have enormous clout. Even if all the IT associations got together we would have only small numbers.”

The ACS, the largest association for IT professionals has about 22,000 members out of about 130,000 IT professionals in Australia. However Hales said this was not a reflection on the ACS, rather on IT professionals in general: “Worldwide, IT professionals do not join associations.”

Join the newsletter!

Or

Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.

Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.

Error: Please check your email address.

Tags 457 visa program457 visasIT Professionals Association (ITPA)

More about ACSAustralian Computer SocietyITPAIT Professionals

Show Comments
[]