VICTORIA lacks good cooks, university lecturers, computer programmers and doctors and has recruited more than 10,000 foreigners to do the work.
A record 88,590 people are in Australia on business-sponsored 457 visas doing jobs Australians cannot do.
As Victoria faces an unemployment rate of 5.3 per cent, figures show 10,260 people were recruited to the state in the nine months to March.
The visas allow employers to recruit overseas for highly skilled jobs that pay more than $49,000 when they can't find Australians who can do the work.
In Victoria, information technology workers including developers and software programmers were in highest demand.
University lecturers, cooks, doctors, marketing specialists and accountants were also in short supply.
Most workers came from India and the UK, followed by Ireland, the US and China, with an average salary package of $90,000.
Australia-wide, 52,020 people were accepted in the past nine months and can apply for permanent residency once here.
NSW recruited the most (16,830), followed by mining powerhouse WA (11,990), where average salary packages were $105,200.
ACTU president Ged Kearney said more training and apprenticeships were needed for Australians, despite the argument that over-training in fields like construction would leave people jobless after the boom.
"Even so, it would give those kids a job right now," she said.
Ms Kearney said short-term labour should be used only to fill "bona fide skills shortages", but there was no proper research on where those gaps were.
The Federal Government has said it will make it easier for Americans to get short-term construction work to plug gaps.
And the Opposition said 457 visas were central to its immigration policy.
heraldsun.com.au 15 May 2012
A clear example of government policy to lower the wages of Australia's workforce, with the full support of business and industry.
The clear markings of slave labour which the corporate media is reluctant to spell out clearly.
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