A shortage of skilled workers in regional Australia is only getting worse, WAFarmers CEO Trevor Whittington says, with farmers who look overseas for solutions being met with even more challenges and red tape
In the real world of rural Australia, there is no longer just a shortage of mechanics or tractor drivers – it’s the whole backbone of the trades: the builders, sparkies, plumbers: the people who keep farms, houses and small towns from grinding to a halt.
Every one of them is now on the critical shortage list.
Nationally, half of all trade and technician occupations are officially flagged as in shortage, and in regional areas the story is even grimmer with barely 54 per cent of advertised jobs are being filled, compared to the mid-60s nationally.
Apprenticeships, once the pipeline that kept the tools in young hands, have collapsed from 250,000 commencements pre-2012 to just 151,000 in 2024, leaving a yawning gap in the next generation of skilled workers.
Even when you can find skilled migrants willing to move bush, the system strands more than 600,000 of them in limbo, blocked from using their professions by endless red tape and costly recognition hurdles.
The result? Six-week waits to get a mechanic, six-month delays to get a builder, and invoices that make farmers wonder if it would be cheaper to fly in a tradesman from Manila than drive out from Perth.
It is no surprise then that farmers are struggling to recruit, as the trades pipeline has all but collapsed.
Fewer than one in five school-leavers now pick up a tool, and those that do are quickly swallowed by the mines with six-figure starting salaries.
What a mess Australia has found itself in. We have become a country where, despite millions of people pouring into the country, skills shortages are everywhere and government is the biggest recruiter, the biggest spender and, in many regional towns, the biggest poacher of labour – leaving farmers, builders and small businesses to fight over what’s left.
For those on the land – or in the local dealership or engineering shop – the shortage of diesel mechanics, sheet-metal workers or ag technicians is a real and growing issue that the state and federal governments seem to have no answer for.
It’s no surprise then that some farmers are looking further afield, eyeing the Philippines, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nepal, India or Sri Lanka – all places brimming with skilled, English-speaking tradies ready to hop on a plane tomorrow to work in a promising land like Australia.
The trouble isn’t supply. The trouble is the challenge to recruit and then sponsor through the labyrinth of paperwork plus costs required to bring them here.
Let’s explore just how hard it will be to bring as an example, a trained mechanic out of South Africa to work on a farm or at a dealership in Australia.
The first hurdle is securing ‘Standard Business Sponsor’ status.
On paper it looks simple. In practice it means producing ABN details, tax returns, bank statements and contracts to prove your business is real, stable and compliant.
Next comes labour market testing. You must run ads on government-approved job boards for four weeks, keep records, and prove no Australian wanted the job.
With no takers locally – as few people in the city want to head to the bush – the hunt shifts overseas.
When you have found an ideal recruit, that’s when the paperwork really begins.
Skills recognition, usually through Trades Recognition Australia, takes six weeks and costs about $1,000, and can be a nightmare for people from countries where formal trade qualifications aren’t stamped in triplicate.
Then comes the English test, police clearances, chest x-rays, medicals and even childhood immunisation records.
It’s less about proving someone can rebuild a gearbox and more about proving they can tick every bureaucratic box.
Then there’s the visa. The Temporary Skill Shortage Visa, Subclass 482, is the default for most farmers importing workers. It allows skilled tradies to come for up to four years and potentially transition to permanent residency.
The regional Subclass 494 offers another pathway, while the Designated Area Migration Agreements (regional skills shortage) can make things a bit easier on salary thresholds and English requirements.
For farmers, sponsoring a worker isn’t a short-term fix.
On a 482 visa, that worker is tied to your business for up to four years, unless they transfer to another approved sponsor. The regional 494 visa locks them in even tighter – three years in a designated area before they can apply for permanent residency. DAMA agreements work the same way, but with lower thresholds on wages and English.
In practice, once you get someone on the ground, they’re committed to you and your district for years, not just a harvest.
Each option brings its own stack of forms, fees and delays.
By the time you’ve paid the sponsorship charges, nomination fees, Skilling Australians Fund levy, visa application fee, medicals, police checks and a migration agent to hold your hand through the whole mess, you’re staring down a bill somewhere around $12,000.
Even if you strip it right back and do the paperwork yourself, you’re looking at around $6,000 in unavoidable government fees and compliance costs.
Mind you, you will pay more to a local recruitment agent finding you a local farm manager.
These visas are aimed at skilled workers with formal qualifications. In agriculture, that mostly means ag technicians or heavy-diesel mechanics.
They won’t cover your need for backpackers to steer chaser bins at harvest, which is why few farmers go down the skilled visa sponsorship route, as most aren’t hiring fully qualified mechanics.
With machinery costs climbing, more farmers are keeping gear longer, making it worthwhile to consider having an in-house mechanic rather than pay $200 an hour to the dealer and wait months for service.
Is sponsoring an overseas mechanic worth it? Yes, if you’re ready for paperwork and maybe even a South African safari or a fishing trip to the Philippines while sourcing them.
The reward is often a loyal, hardworking mechanic who not only will keep your farm machinery running but settles into the district, enrols kids in the local school and strengthens the community.
Mind you, the cultural change and the lottery of matching workers to bosses means not every sponsorship will work out.
If the working relationship fails they have 60 days to find another sponsor which should not be hard in the bush if they are any good at their job.