About Labour Market Testing
What is Labour Market Testing?
Labour market testing is a type of recruitment campaign which is mandatory for the business to conduct if they wish to sponsor a foreign worker on a subclass 482 or 494 visa. The objective of Labour Market Testing (LMT) is to ensure that applicant business has made efforts to try the Australian job market before making a job offer to a foreign national. In other words, the applicant business needs to demonstrate the position could not be filled by a qualified Australian permanent resident or citizen, unless doing so would be inconsistent with international trade obligations.
What are the Labour Market Testing Requirements?
Labour Market Testing must be done in the correct manner and format. Failure in following these instructions will most likely result in refusal of the the nomination application. For all nominations lodged after 3 September 2020, the requirements for labour market testing are:
- The position needs to be advertised in Australia, in English, within the four months immediately before the 482, 494 or 186 Direct Entry application for nomination is submitted;
- The position must be advertised:
- on the Employment Department’s Website – https://www.workforceaustralia.gov.au/businesses/ and
- on at least two other advertisements on national recruitment websites.
- An Accredited Sponsor may also advertise on their own company’s website.
- Job advertisements need to show the:
- job title
- position description and skills description
- name of the sponsor (your organisation) or the name of the recruitment agency your business is using if applicable; and
- salary or salary range (unless the salary is above AUD$96,400); and
- You must display advertisements for four weeks (at least 28 days), and accept applications during that period.
To summarise, applicant business needs to run a job advertising campaign for at least one month on Workforce Australia. As an applicant, you must also run advertisements on two other recruitment websites with national reach. Acceptable examples of recruitment websites are Seek, Jora and Indeed. Industry-specific websites are also acceptable. However, social media or general sites such as Gumtree, Facebook and Instagram are not acceptable.
