457 Employer Sponsorship Visa Guide

Insight 3. Training Benchmark

Training benchmarks are a very important component to support an employer to be approved as a Standard Business Sponsor. There are two ways for an employer to demonstrate the training expenses:

(1) Training Benchmark A: Evidence of training of at least 1% of payroll. The evidence can be include, but not limited to, relevant apprenticeship records, employment of trainees or recent graduates, paid invoices for external courses, paid invoices for courses of study, employment of an in-house staff member who has specific training responsibilities.

(2) Training Benchmark B: Recent expenditure, by the business, to the equivalent of at least 2 % of the payroll of the business, in payments allocated to an industry training fund, and a commitment, by the business to make this payment for 3 years which is the period they hold the sponsorship approval.

Insight 4.  English level of the visa applicant 

If the applicant is from a country in which English is not the first language, such as UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, NZ then a score of 5 in each of the 4 bands of the IELTS General Test would need to be achieved in the last three years prior to lodging the application. However, the English requirement is waived under the follow two situations:

(1) If the annual salary in the nomination $96400 + super,OR
(2) The applicant has studied continuously in English  – please discuss with us.