Employment

The following types of employment are not eligible in the Skilled Employment or Established Resident pathways, and will not be given weight when considering priority attributes for other pathways:

• internships (unless paid professional internships undertaken for registration purposes), stipends, scholarships and volunteer positions
• taxi drivers, ride-share, food delivery
• subcontracting employment is only recognised where the applicant has a related skills assessment or at least two years prior experience. If the role is lower skilled (ANZSCO 4-5 equivalent, such as disability support worker) it is only recognised where the skills assessment is related to the industry in which the role is performed.
• employment related to supermarkets* convenience stores and service stations
• mobile phone sales and support – when immediately transferring from another state or territory
• massage therapists without a related skills assessment and verifiable health fund provider number ^
• employment related to limited-service restaurants* including:
  • fast food or takeaway food services
  • fast casual restaurants* that do not offer full table service
  • drinking establishments that offer only a limited food service
  • limited-service cafes including, but not limited to coffee shops or mall cafés, and
  • limited-service pizza restaurants.

* Retail supervisor and management positions in supermarkets (not convenience stores) and supervisory or management employment in limited-service restaurants will be considered and weighted in the Tasmanian Skilled Graduate and Established Resident pathways where the duties are consistent with at least ANZSCO Skill Level 4 (e.g., Retail Supervisor).

^ massage therapists must have their own provider number and cannot use the provider number of the business proprietor

If your employment is covered by the list of exclusions above, you should select the "not applicable" options in the corresponding questions in the Application Gateway.

Contracts for employment must be current and should have at least 3 months remaining (unless demonstrating prior experience). They must be consistent with the National Employment Standards (NES) and any awards, enterprise agreements or other registered agreements that may apply.

Contracts should contain:

• commencement / end dates
• duty statement / position description
• salary / pay rate
• relevant industrial instrument, award or agreement
• standard hours of work, and
• location of work.

Where a contract has not been entered into (eg, casuals who do not have a formal contract), applicants will need to provide evidence of the job offer and that all pay and conditions are consistent with the National Employment Standards (NES) and any awards, enterprise agreements or other registered agreements that may apply.

If applying in the Skilled Employment Pathway and working outside your area of skills assessment, you must have relevant qualifications or experience as defined in ANZSCO.

For example, if holding an External Auditor skills assessment working as a cook (ANZSCO Skill Level 3), you must have a AQF Certificate III including at least two years of on-the-job training, or AQF Certificate IV, or at least three years of relevant experience. Qualifications gained through online study or entirely on basis of Recognition of Prior Learning not accepted for consideration.

Qualifications related to ANZSCO 4-5 employment must be minimum Certificate III.

Qualifications that were gained outside Australia will be recognised in regard to relevance to current employment if the overseas institution is a nationally recognised institution in the relevant home country.

A well-established business actively operating in Tasmania is normally expected to have a combination of the following characteristics:

• a minimum 12 months operation in Tasmania
• permanent business signage
• active/ongoing online presence, advertising and marketing
• a Tasmanian address as a registered business location
• a local landline contact number
• an ongoing office space (not a residential address) that is not ‘casual’ or ‘virtual’ (including corporate/co-shared offices)
• permanent representation of employees at the stated business location.

If your employment is not with a well-established business, it cannot be used to meet priority attributes, including those related to salary or pay rate.

If your employer is not a well-established business, you should select the "not applicable" options in the corresponding questions in the Application Gateway.

All employment (including casual employment) must comply with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s National Employment Standards, with pay and conditions that would be no less than those of local Australian permanent residents and citizens working in the role.

This includes salary consistent with including local market salary rate. This could be demonstrated by:

• reference to an industrial award or enterprise agreement
• market salary survey data such as Hays Salary guides or Payscale
• advertisements from the last 6 months for equivalent positions in the same location (eg Seek, Indeed, CareerOne)
• remuneration surveys completed by a reputable organisation
• written advice from unions or employer associations.

Nomination will not be supported in any pathway where this is not demonstrated.

If using employment in a role equivalent to ANZSCO Skill Level 4 or 5 to meet minimum requirements or priority attributes you must have the relevant qualifications or experience as defined in ANZSCO. (Note that for the purposes of this program qualifications must be a minimum Certificate III, or at least 12 months experience).

For example, if working as a Retail Supervisor (ANZSCO 621511 – ANZSCO Skill Level 4), you must have an AQF Certificate III or at least one year of relevant experience.

Where ANZSCO does not list a qualification or experience for an occupation Migration Tasmania requires you to have a related AQF Certificate III qualification or one year of relevant Australian experience.

Where a priority attribute or Gateway question / response specifically refers to a qualification, experience cannot be used as a substitute.

Employment or business operation is not necessary to meet the minimum requirements for nomination. However, it will be used to assess an application against priority attributes where that employment is with a well-established Tasmania business.

Employment must average minimum 9 hours per week during study, 20 hours after completion of study.

Excluded employment or business operation will not be considered in relation to Priority Attributes.

Current employment with businesses substantially reliant upon the Tasmanian Skilled Migration State Nomination Program, is not a priority for Tasmanian nomination.

The key test to determine if employment is affected is whether or not the business or employment would continue if the Tasmanian Skilled Migration State Nomination Program ceased to operate.

While not excluding an applicant from nomination, current employment in those industries will not be considered in relation to priority attributes, except for those related to salary or pay rate.

In the absence of other higher priority attributes employment of this nature does not guarantee an invitation to apply for nomination.

To help demonstrate a genuine intention to settle in Tasmania, applicants who currently hold a Temporary Skill Shortage visa (subclass 482), and who have worked less than 12 months with their Tasmanian-based sponsoring employer must provide a letter of support from their current sponsoring employer stating that they:

• support your visa application, and
• understand that you will not be tied to their business once the subclass 491/subclass 190 visa is granted.

Where employment is required to be related to an applicant’s skills assessment to either meet minimum requirements or in relation to priority attributes, the role must be consistent with ANZSCO Skill Levels 1-3 and be in the same four-digit ANZSCO Group area as the skills assessment.

For example, a candidate with a skills assessment for Analyst Programmer (261311) could be working in any role listed as part of ANZSCO Group 2613 to be working in an area related to their skills assessment.

In-course work placements completed as part of a course of study are not recognised in relation to this requirement. Work placements of over 400 hours are recognised for an Orange priority attribute in the Tasmanian Skilled Graduate pathway.

Where employment or business is required to be in the same industry as the skills assessment or study area (but not directly related), this should be within a related Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) Division.

For example, an Accountant could be working in any industry group in Division K – Financial and Insurance Services, such as Banking, Financial Asset Investing or General Insurance. Employment may be at any ANZSCO skill level.

Where a Gold priority attribute states “Skills assessment and related employment included in Critical Roles list”, that employment must have been for at least the immediate three months prior to registering interest and must be ongoing at the time the candidate applies for nomination.

To qualify for gold or green priority attributes, employment must be skilled (ANZSCO 1-3) and average at least 20 hours per week.

Employment in ANZSCO skill level 4 - 5 roles or averaging between nine and 19 hours per week may qualify for orange priority attributes.

Where an occupation is listed on the Tasmanian Onshore Skilled Occupation List (TOSOL), the caveats for that occupation must be met in order to gain Gold or Green attributes for any pathway (unless stated otherwise on the TOSOL). For example, a graduate with a skills assessment as a Sales and Marketing Manager would need to be working with an employer that had been operating for more than three years to obtain any of the Gold or Green attributes related to working in a role related to skills assessment.

To claim gold or green attributes related to employment, the role must be skilled ANZSCO Skill Level 1, 2 or 3.

In cases where there is some overlap between lower (ANZSCO 4-5) and higher (ANSZSCO 1-3) roles there must be a substantial proportion of duties listed on your duty statement that are consistent with an ANZSCO occupation classified on ANZSCO as Skill Level 1, 2 or 3. For the Tasmanian Skilled Employment pathway, there should be at least a 70 per cent match between the duties of your role and the duties listed for the position on ANZSCO. For the Tasmanian Skilled Graduate and Tasmanian Established Resident pathways there is more flexibility; the match should be at least 40 per cent.

For example, an Assistant Accountant role would only be accepted for the Tasmanian Skilled Employment pathway if there was a 70 per cent match with the duties outlined on ANZSCO for Group 2211 Accountants. Roles that consist mainly of administrative support are not considered skilled roles.

Some priority attributes refer to your pay or salary. The Migration Tasmania Gateway may also ask you to provide this information.

You can only claim pay or salary from eligible employment or business operations. If your employment or business operation is on the list of excluded employment / businesses, or your employment is under 20 hours per week (9 hours for the Tasmanian Skilled Graduate pathway during study periods) you should choose “not applicable” as your response when lodging your ROI in the Application Gateway.

What should you include as your total pay?

For an annual salary amount you should include all your estimated earnings for the current financial year from your Tasmanian based employment before income tax deductions. It should reflect the annual salary amount in your employment contract.

It includes:

• wages
• payments while on leave
• penalties for weekends, public holidays, or work outside regular hours
• commissions
• amounts deducted in a salary packaging arrangement.

It does not include:

• mandatory employer superannuation contributions
• allowances
• bonuses (including sign-on bonus)
• overtime
• scholarships
• reimbursements.

Part-time work

If you work part-time, you should use the hourly rate shown in your contract or payslip. This should be the base hourly rate, not including overtime.

If you work multiple part-time jobs, you cannot combine the income. You should use the rate from the highest paying job.

Casual employment

If you are employed casually, you should use the base hourly rate before casual loading. This is the hourly rate before the 25 per cent casual loading is applied (in other words, it is your final hourly rate minus 25 per cent).

The following types of businesses are not eligible in the Tasmanian Business Owner or Established Resident pathways, and will not be given weight when considering priority attributes for other pathways:

• massage therapists without a related skills assessment and verifiable health fund provider number ^
• taxi drivers, ride-share, food delivery
• service station / petroleum outlets
• convenience store franchises
• franchise and passive business investments
• subcontracting businesses.

^ massage therapists must have their own provider number and cannot use the provider number of the business proprietor

All businesses must be well-established (see “Well-established business” above).

Online retail businesses or other businesses being maintained entirely online are unlikely to meet requirements for nomination.

Migration Tasmania will only give weight to employment claims to meet minimum requirements or priority attributes if that employment is consistent with the definitions and exclusions this section. If your employment does not meet these requirements, choose the “none of the above”, “not applicable” or similar option from the checklist.

Business operators can claim income where they are drawing that income directly from the business. It must be the actual personal income you have drawn from the business, not total sales or turnover prior to expenses.

Applicants must provide supporting evidence, such as Australian Tax Office Notice of Assessments, payslips, payment summaries or a personal bank statement showing personal income.

If your evidence does not sufficiently support this claim, your application may be declined.

When you lodge your nomination application you will be asked to provide payslips and employment contracts to support your claim. The evidence must show that you earned the stated amount over at least the last 4 weeks. Business operators will need to show that the income from business matches the claimed salary amount. Your nomination application will be declined if you claim a higher estimate than your actual earnings.

A sole business owner cannot claim an employment relationship with their business. This includes where they have entered into a contract with the business, pay wages to themselves from the business and accrue leave and other entitlements. Sole owners in this situation can only claim business related priority attributes and should not claim employment in the Application Gateway.

Subcontracting arrangements (where providing services to another contracted business) can only be claimed as employment. For the Tasmanian Skilled Employment Pathway a candidate must have a related skilled assessment and 12 months business activity in Tasmania.

For all other pathways subcontracting employment will be recognised for priority attributes where there is at least two years prior experience (in Tasmania or elsewhere in Australia) as either an employee or sub-contractor.

In all cases there must be evidence of ongoing contracting agreements.

Where candidates do not have this experience the “not applicable” option should be selected for employment in the Application Gateway.