A Labour Agreement (LA) is an agreement between the Australian Commonwealth government and an Australian business/employer for temporary and/or permanent entry of an agreed number of overseas workers from overseas to fill a group of positions across a wide range of occupations.

An Labour Agreement authorises approved employers to recruit, employ or engage overseas labourers to apply for the following categories of visas:

Subclass 482 (Temporary Skill Shortage) visa
Subclass 494 (Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) visa and
Subclass 186 (Employer Nomination Scheme (ENS) visa) (Permanent)

Features of a Labour Agreement for employers may include:

• Employers can negotiate and specify certain occupations being nominated in line with the nature of the business.
• Specify certain requirements to be met by the nominator. Once these conditions are set, nominators must meet.
• Nominator can negotiate and specify how many positions they wish to nominate per year. But they must not exceed the nomination cap set for the nominator.

With this agreement in place, employers can negotiate with government for concessions based on:

• Occupations in skill level 5
  The current skill occupations for employer sponsored visas as listed in the ANZSCO are normally occupations from level 1 to level 4. If Agreement can be reached, the employer may nominate and sponsor from low level occupations from ANZSCO (Level 5).
• Lower English requirement
  The current minimum English requirement for TSS 482 visa, for example is IELTS 5.0, with each individual band 4.5. Under the Labour Agreement, employers can negotiate to lower the level to IELTS 4.0 or nil.

Market rate salary

According to TSS nomination requirements, nominators are required to meet the temporary skilled Migration income threshold (TSMIT) of A$53,900 to be paid to the nominee.

With labour agreement, nominators can only pay the nominees a market rates and to ensure the nominated workers  receive the same terms and conditions as Australian citizens or PR.

What Industries are preferred to sign LA 

According to the Department of Home Affairs statistics, currently there are nine industry agreements in place:

• Dairy
• Fishing
• Meat
• Minister of Religion
• On-hire
• Pork
• Restaurant (fine dining)
• Advertising
• Horticulture

If you are running a business which is engaged in one of the above businesses and are looking for how to sign a labour agreement with government, you may see our advice at Korrylink.