Michaelia Cash, Australian Assistant Immigration Minister, has announced that the minimum salary paid for foreign skilled workers must be similar to Australian staff, according to the new immigration agreements. Employers will be expelled, if they pay fewer wages to the foreign skilled employees than locals.
In a press meet, Michaelia Cash, said that the wages paid by Australian employers to overseas workers must be at least equal to Australian employees and under the DAMA program salaries for overseas workers can’t be underbid.
At present, for the 457 visa applicants the minimum salary is $53,900 and usually called as the TSMIT (Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold), which will also apply for new local area immigration agreements. This indicates that overseas workers must be salaried either a minimum market salary rate or TSMIT.
According to the DAMA guidelines and regulations no overseas employees must be waged or hired for lower wages than the Australian employees.
If $70,000 is salaried to an Australian employee for each year, then the same amount will be catered to the equivalent overseas skilled employees, who were brought to fill up the labor shortages.
Initially these latest rules are set to be applied for Darwin, and shortly to other regions. The job occupations included in this program are disability carers, childcare employees, bricklayers, office managers, nurses, carpenters, chefs and others.
