Latest 457 visa statistics released

February 22, 2016

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has released the latest 457 visa stats.  The number of 457-visas granted in the six months to 31 December 2015 was down 10.4%, the number of applications lodged dropped by 1.2%.

The DIBP granted 22,870 visas between July and 31 December last year.

• The highest ANZSCO grouping was for Managers, now making up 18% of the program (down from 18.8%), professionals were 53.6% and technicians and trades workers were 24% of the program intake, down from 26% previously.
• India is now well established as the primary source country (24%), passing the UK (17.7%) which had led the field for quite a few years.
• The most popular occupations for primary visas granted were cooks (5.7% of total grants) followed by café or restaurant managers (4.4%) and developer programmers (4.3%).
• NSW dominates the numbers by state, with 42.1% of all granted visas, followed by Victoria (24.8%), and WA (14.9%). NSW also had the strongest growth in visa applications, up over 10%, followed by Tasmania, up 4.8%.  All other jurisdictions recorded drops in the numbers of applications.,
• The number of subclass 457-visa holders who were granted a permanent residence or provisional visa was 26,620, an increase of 5.6%.

The full report is available here.