30 April 2009

Peoplebank seeks 200 skilled IT workers emigrating to Australia every year

An Australian technology recruiter is now seeking 200 workers emigrating to Australia every year after signing up to the government's temporary Australian visa program (subclass 457).

Peoplebank, Australia's largest IT recruiting company, has announced that his hiring staff would poaching from the large numbers of IT professionals emigrating to Australia, and that in the coming month alone, over a dozen overseas workers would be sourced for IT work in Australia.

The company has signed up for the Temporary Business Long Stay (subclass 457) visa program, which allows employers to sponsor an Australian visa for overseas workers to work and live in Australia for up to four years, provided they prove that the local workforce cannot fill the particular position.

Chief operating officer Peter Acheson said the new agreement with the government would give them more freedom to fill the IT shortages around the country than many other companies have, particularly after the 457 visa changes were implemented. 

"Over the last 12 months it has been a challenge to bring people in on 457 visas and this will now allow us to do that," The Australian IT reported him as saying.

"There has been a bit of latent demand created as a result of the fact that we haven't been able to bring people in over the past year," Mr Acheson said.

"Some of the people we will put in place over the next few months will be soaking up that demand.  I think probably somewhere between 150 and 200 a year would be the sort of number we will get to."

The company is hopeful that the speed of the temporary Australian visa program in fast-tracking an Australian visa application would help them fill the shortages with IT skilled workers more efficiently and effectively.

"At the moment, there is clearly a shortage, for example, of .NET programmers, Java people, J2EE programmers - we would expect to bring people in for those areas, and then the emerging technologies."

Peoplebank will also give employers the option of moving employees who are holders of the Australian working holiday visa to being holders of the 457 visa.  The Australian working holiday visa is a 12-month visa that allows young travellers (aged 18-30 years) to work for any employer, provided they do not work for the same employer for over six months.

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The Australian Visa Bureau is an independent consulting company specialising in helping people with emigrating to Australia.