Globalization, Immigration Policy, and Youth Employment in Australia

Why recruit temporary sponsored skilled migrants? A human capital theory analysis of employer motivations in Australia

“…Only a small proportion of employers across all industries saw cultural diversity/multiculturalism (5%) as a benefit of sponsoring temporary skilled migrants, but this was seen as relatively more important among employers in certain industries, such as education & training and health care & social assistance, perhaps in order to reflect the diversity of service users and customers (Zikic, 2015). Similarly, only 4% of respondents cited bringing workers from international offices as a benefit, but the responses were higher among employers in the information media & telecommunications industry where there is a preponderance of multinational businesses (Birrell et al, 2016).…”

“…Another limitation is the absence of questions from the survey relating to employer recruitment of skilled migrants from particular source countries or via onshore versus offshore channels. It is important for future studies to examine these issues given they are likely to provide further insights into employer motivations for engaging workers on temporary sponsored skilled visas particularly in terms of the skills and capabilities that employers recruit for (Birrell et al, 2016; Hawthorne, 2015). A further limitation is that this article has relied upon on employer perspectives of the migrant worker recruitment process.…”

“…Various provisions exist under this scheme to ensure that sponsored migrant workers receive the same employment conditions and protections as ‘local’ workers. However, there is growing evidence to indicate that these provisions are inadequately enforced (Birrell et al, 2016; Clibborn and Wright, 2018). Furthermore, because visa holders are effectively tied to their sponsoring employer, they have limited mobility within the Australian labour market.…”

“…An alternative explanation is that offshore sponsorship may reflect a business strategy among multinational companies to transfer staff from their operations abroad. According to Birrell et al (2016), the high rate of offshore applications relating to computing and ICT occupations reflects a dominant strategy among Indian multinational companies, which account for a large share of ICT sponsorship, to transfer workers from their Indian operations and employ them at below market salary rates in breach of visa regulations to produce a competitive advantage in the Australian ICT market.…”