Australia’s Subclass 457 work visa has been a coveted option for overseas people who want to immigrate to Australia for an interim period. The subclass visa is a temporary employment-based immigration scheme. It has been facilitating Australian employers in hiring overseas workers.

According to recent stats released by the Australian Immigration Department, even after the global economic meltdown, and amendments brought to the Oz immigration legislation, the popularity of the Subclass 457 visa scheme did not go down, while the country’s net immigration level has seen a decline. In fact, of late there is a significant soar in the number of visas being issued or applications being filed under the Subclass 457 visas scheme.

The visa scheme is an interim business visa, which come under the same genre as the H-1B visa of the United States. Both these visa schemes allow employers of the respective countries to hire or sponsor foreign workers for a certain period of time. As for the Australian visa, it lets foreign workers to work in Australia for up to 4 years.

There are reasons behind the popularity of the subclass 457 visa scheme. Oz businesses are utilizing the scheme for meet their skills shortages. As per reports, about four thousand primary Australian temporary business visa applications were filed in the month May of 2010, which is a rise of 12 percent from April, 2010.

Even after implementing tighter immigration requirements, applications for the Australian business visas have been on a soaring trend, thanks to a bloom in Australian business conditions. In May, 60 percent of offshore Australian temporary business visa applications were filed by applicants from outside the Kangaroo land.