457 Visa & TSMIT ( Part 2 )

How does the employer show this? It can be proven by providing a copy of a contract of an Australian citizen or permanent resident that is working in the same position and location as your nominated role. (All reference to the name of the employee may be deleted for privacy and confidentiality reasons governed by the privacy laws of Australia.)

The occupation may also be governed by an Australian Industrial award which will specify the salary that the employee should be paid.

Your employer may wish to pay you a salary that is higher than the industrial award and this is not a problem as long as the same salary is equivalent to that of another employee who is doing the same work, and therefore is not higher, or in any way disadvantages the other employer.

What if there is no equivalent Australian working in the same position/occupation/role?

Your employer may not have an Australian citizen or permanent resident that works as an employee in the same role and location as your nominated role.

Your employer can provide evidence of what the Australian market salary rate is for your nominated role and show the ‘guaranteed annual earnings’ are at least equal to the market rate.

Usually demonstrated by providing Australian market salary survey data; this data needs to be relevant to the nominated role and the location where you will be working.

Locating the appropriate market data for your role/occupation/industry is really just a matter of completing research.

Let’s look at some examples of where a nomination may fail because the Market Rate id below the TSMIT

The following is a good example of where the market salary rate is below the TSMIT and therefore cannot meet the eligibility criteria for the employee to be sponsored by the employer.

Jon has been nominated by ABC Pty Ltd. ABC Pty Ltd employs several Australian employees in its workplace who perform the same work as that which Jon will undertake as a 457 visa holder.

ABC Pty Ltd currently pays the Australian employees $50,500 annually as per the industrial award that applies in that workplace. As a result, $50,500 is the applicable ‘market salary rate’ as dictated by the relevant industrial award.

In this situation, the 457 nomination would be refused on the basis that the ‘Australian market rate’ for the nominated role is below the TSMIT.

Now let us suppose that ABC Pty Ltd is willing to pay Jon a salary of $53,900 or above, this will not be sufficient.

Why you ask?  It is either the same or is a better salary that the Market Salary Rate! Because the requirement in this part of the nomination process is comparing the Australian market salary rate for the nominated occupation, not the applicant’s actual salary, against TSMIT.

There are no exceptions to this requirement!