Australia visa move unlikely to affect Indian IT workers: NASSCOM

The Dollar Business Bureau

The move by the Australian government to abolish the 457 visa for foreign workers would not have much impact on visas provided to Indian IT workers, said industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).

“...it is a surprise and seems to be have been driven by domestic political compulsions where we are seeing immigration as a matter of huge political concern within the current geo political environment,” the industry body said in a statement on Wednesday.

In order to tackle the rising unemployment, Australia has eliminated the 457 visa programme, which was used by more than 95,000 temporary international workers, with many of them being Indians.

The Australian government will replace this visa with another programme by adding new restrictions. The 457 visa programme allowed businesses to hire foreign workers up to a period of 4 years for skilled jobs.

NASSCOM said that it will work in coordination with the governments of both the countries in order to understand further details on the new rules and make sure these new rules can be seamlessly implemented to ensure continuity in business for Australian clients.

“...we see this change as something that is evolutionary and a policy change on behalf of the Australian government,” Nasscom said.

Indian IT companies such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro have to depend on such visa programmes for sending their employees to client sites.

With increasing protectionism measures taken by nations such as Singapore, the US and now Australia, firms are starting to change their business models in order to reduce the dependency on visas and to hire more locals.