457 Visa Minimum Income Threshold To Be Lowered for Chefs, Cooks, and Restaurant Managers

A statement released by the R&CA has advised that the hospitality industry is experiencing a shortfall of around 56,000 skilled chefs, cooks and restaurant managers.

The RC&A is the hospitality industry peak body that represents over 35,000 restaurants and catering business across all states of Australia.

The peak body has advised that it has struck a unique labour agreement with the Australian Government to make it more appealing to overseas workers to work in Australia’s growing hospitality industry. The statement released by the R&CA states that rapid growth of the industry will require at least another 43,700 jobs to be filled by November 2018.

Australia’s hospitality industry is forecasted to be the most growing Australian industry and is expected to expand at a phenomenal rate of 8.5% per year.

The labour agreement that will be put in place will reduce the ‘Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold’ also known as the ‘TSMIT’ by 10 per cent for restaurants that meet the specified criteria as per the labour agreement.

Some of the specified criteria of the labour agreement are as follows:

• Businesses will need to offer an ala carte menu
• Uniformed staff
• a Maitre’d
• Industry recognition through the award programs set in place

The agreement has also criteria based on the skills, qualifications and English language requirements for skilled workers to work in Australia.

Using statistics of the 2014-2015 financial year, the food services and accommodation industry was the largest user of Australia’s 457 visa program with over 4,300 applications granted to skilled migrants.