First: All Subclass 482 visa holders can transition to permanent residency — no longer limited to occupations on the long-term list

First, note the wording used by the Department: it will not be limited to the Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List. That means every occupation on the Subclass 482 lists can transition to permanent residency.This effectively frees up the vast majority of applicants who have two years of work experience.

Previously, because occupations on the short-term Subclass 482 list had no pathway to PR (apart from the specific groups designated under the COVID concession), many applicants did not consider applying for a Subclass 482 visa and instead chose the more economical Subclass 408 visa. Both granted full-time work rights and neither offered a direct pathway to permanent residency — so why not go with the free Subclass 408?

Going forward, the situation is dramatically different: occupations on the short-term list can all transition to PR, which means any occupation eligible for a Subclass 482 employer-sponsored visa can transition to permanent residency.

And the short-term list currently has more than 200 occupations — many of them very common ones!

For example, Cook (previously only a Chef could transition to PR)

Marketing and PR roles such as marketing specialist, advertising specialist, sales and marketing manager, public relations professional, graphic designer

Finance and investment roles such as finance manager, finance broker, Investment adviser

IT roles such as ICT customer support, ICT sales representative, ICT support engineer, web developer and other occupations with lower entry thresholds can all transition to a Subclass 186 permanent residency.

There are also cafe or restaurant manager, conference and event organiser, copywriter, recruitment consultant, organisation and methods analyst, information and organisation professionals (nec), technical sales representatives (nec) including education sales representatives, private tutors and teachers (nec), teacher of English to speakers of other languages, retail buyer, insurance agent, program or project administrator and contract administrator — and many more are all occupations on the short-term list.

In the near future (possibly by year-end), the 200-plus short-term-list occupations — including those above — will all open up a direct pathway to PR.Moreover, the people covered by this new policy are very likely to be current Subclass 482 holders and new Subclass 482 applicants.So there is nothing stopping you from lodging a Subclass 482 application right now and then enjoying the benefits of the new policy.

It also means more employers can — and will be willing to — provide sponsorship

Many prospective employer-sponsorship applicants want to be able to transition to permanent residency later, rather than simply working in Australia for a few years and leaving. But if their occupation happened to be on the short-term list, there was previously no direct pathway to PR. Employer and employee might then wonder whether they could find a same-industry role on the long-term list — for instance, whether a Cook could go via Chef.

But anyone with some employer-sponsorship experience in the migration industry will know that one of the cornerstones of employer sponsorship is the Genuine Position requirement — the genuineness of the role — meaning you must show it is entirely reasonable for the employer to need that position. Previously, in order to be able to transition to PR through higher-threshold occupations such as chef, ICT security  specialist, business analyst and the like, the pool of employers that could correspond to those roles was far narrower. Put plainly, proving that a business needs an ICT security specialist is a completely different proposition from proving it needs an ICT test engineer.

So the first major advantage of this newly announced policy is this: not only do the eligible occupations expand to cover almost every industry, but the pool of employers that can meet the requirements also grows several times over.

Second: Subclass 482 visa holders need only work for their employer for two years to transition to PR

This is the most exciting and easiest point to grasp: you can transition to permanent residency faster!

Previously you had to work for the employer for three years before transitioning to PR; now two years is enough.

Do not underestimate this one-year reduction — its benefits reach into every aspect.

One: it speeds up the time to convert to PR. This is simple arithmetic and needs no further elaboration.

Two: it reduces the risk of hitting the age limit. As we know, the age limit for transitioning to a Subclass 186 permanent residency visa is 45. Being able to complete the transition in just 2 years gives applicants in their early 40s far greater peace of mind and security.

Three: it reduces the chance of problems arising on the employer’s side. Going from 3 years to 2 cuts the likelihood of an employer running into business difficulties by a third, making employer sponsorship safer and more reliable.

Third: Subclass 482 applicants in short-term-list occupations are no longer limited in the number of applications they can make.

The Department’s original wording is: the Government is also removing limits on the number of short-term TSS visa applications that can be made in Australia.

As we know, under the previous policy, applying for a Subclass 482 visa in a short-term-list occupation came with a cap on the number of applications you could make onshore in Australia. Apart from certain special ITO exemptions, you could generally only renew a short-term Subclass 482 visa onshore once. This restriction is about to be removed.

In the author’s view, this brings two advantages:

If an employee runs into difficulty transitioning to permanent residency — because the employer hits a snag while sponsoring the Subclass 186, or because of problems in the business itself — they can change employers and renew the Subclass 482 visa without limit until the transition to permanent residency is complete.This provides a safer, more certain buffer on the way to finally securing permanent residency.

While the short-term Subclass 482 visa was subject to an application cap, applicants had to demonstrate GENUINE TEMPORARY ENTRY (GTE). The author cannot guarantee this, but it is reasonable to infer that, with the application cap removed, the GTE requirement may well be scrapped alongside it — thereby removing yet another major cause of visa refusals.

These are the three most important favourable measures we currently know of in the Subclass 482-to-permanent-residency reforms. The Department of Home Affairs website also states that further information will be released before the new policy takes effect, and we believe most of the detail will be confirmed before the end of 2023!

In summary: this new policy is, in effect, an amnesty for employer-sponsored visas.It signals that applicants across every industry with 2 years of work experience will have a pathway to PR — and on a faster, more efficient and safer pathway at that.

We wish you all the best of luck!

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