Guide to Advertising When Sponsoring a Foreign Worker [Updated 2022]

Advertising when Sponsoring

Labour Market Testing

Unless an International Trade Obligation (ITO) applies, you must provide evidence that you have tested the labour market by attempting to recruit a suitably qualified and experienced Australian worker for the nominated position. This is called the Labour Market Testing (‘LMT’) requirement.

4 Week Rule

To satisfy the LMT requirement, when the position nomination is lodged, you will need to provide evidence that you have advertised the position within the last 4 months, for a total period of at least four (4) weeks.

The applications or expressions of interest for the advertised position will need to be accepted for the duration of four (4) weeks. The advertising does not need to be in consecutive weeks.

The advertising must meet the following criteria:

• the nominated position must be advertised in Australia on a recruitment website with a national reach in Australia;
• on the Australian Government’s Jobactive website: https://jobactive.gov.au/ and
• at least TWO advertisements (paid or unpaid) were published: on a prominent or professional recruitment website with national reach, that publishes advertisements for positions throughout Australia.

If the approved sponsor is an accredited sponsor, the nominated position can be advertised on the approved sponsor’s website.

Not Social Media!

Advertising may be accepted via an industry-specific recruitment website.

If they are relevant to the nominated occupation and are known to be used by the industry.

However, classified websites and advertisements that only use social media notifications (e.g. Twitter or Instagram) are not accepted.

LinkedIn’s online recruitment platform is acceptable, job vacancies restricted to LinkedIn profile members only are NOT acceptable.

The Language of the Ad

The language used for the advertisement for the nominated position will need to be in English.

Details of the Position

Each advertisement intended for a nominated position must include the following details in the position:

• title of position or a description of the position
• skills and/or experience required for the position
• the salary for the position, if the intended annual earning for the nominated position is lower than $96,000
• the name of the sponsor, or if the sponsor has engaged a recruitment agency for the purposes of LMT, the name of the recruitment agency

Don’t Wing It

Evidence of the advertisement process will need to be supplied to the Department to demonstrate that your advertising meets these criteria.

Summary Statement

Following the end of the process, a brief statement of the results of the recruitment process will need to be provided to the Department.

This will include how many candidates (if any) you interviewed, and why they were deemed unsuitable. If LMT evidence is not submitted at the time of the position nomination application lodgement, the application can be refused.

Time Period

For a nominated occupation, the time period that the LMT is required to be undertaken is 4 months, ending on the day on which the nomination form for the nominated application is lodged.

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