List of Occupations Requiring Labour Market Testing for 457 visa

Which occupations are exempted?

Labour Market Testing will NOT be required for:

• Most Management Positions
• Most Professional Occupations
• Most Associate Professional Positions (requiring a diploma level qualification)

The main exception to the above are people working in the engineering and nursing fields.

Other Exemptions to Labour Market Testing

Even if the occupation is on the LMT list, exemptions from labour market testing apply where:

• The applicant is a citizen of Chile or Thailand, or a citizen or permanent resident of New Zealand;
• Where the employee already works for an associated entity of the sponsor in Chile, New Zealand or an ASEAN country (Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand or Vietnam);
• Where the employee has worked full time for the nominating business for the last 2 years;
• Where the business operates in a WTO member country and is seeking to sponsor senior management staff to work in Australia; or
• Where workers are required to respond to a major disaster

How Must Labour Market Testing Be Conducted?

If required, Labour Market Testing will in general involve advertising the position and indicating why no suitable applicants were found from the Australian labour pool.

Alternatively, employers can provide:

• Labour Market Research;
• Support letters from government employment agencies; or
• Details of the business participating in job and career expos

Labour Market Testing must have been done for the occupation at some stage in the 12 months prior to application. However, if staff have been made redundant in the occupation within the last 4 months, Labour Market Testing must be done after the redundancies have occurred.

Information provided in a Department of Immigration FAQ sheet indicates that advertising of positions via social media, company websites and other free means are perfectly acceptable ways to meet the Labour Market Testing requirement.