Owner guide
Labour market testing: what you must do before sponsoring a pharmacist.
Before you nominate an overseas pharmacist on a Skills in Demand visa, you generally have to show the Department of Home Affairs that you tried to fill the role locally first. It is the step owners most often get wrong — usually by advertising for the wrong length of time, or leaving the salary out.
Try local first
That is not just good manners. It is the law.
We say this to every owner who calls about sponsorship: run a proper local search first.
Not only because Home Affairs requires evidence of it, but because a local hire is faster, cheaper and carries none of the nomination risk. Sponsorship is what you do when the local market has genuinely been tested, not the first move.
If the local search works, you have filled the role. If it does not, you have just built the evidence file your nomination needs.
The requirement
What labour market testing actually requires.
For Skills in Demand (subclass 482) nominations in the Core Skills and Specialist Skills streams, and for subclass 494 Employer Sponsored nominations:
At least two advertisements
For the position.
Each running at least four weeks
With applications or expressions of interest accepted for at least four weeks.
Inside the four months before you lodge
Advertise too early and it goes stale.
Keep a copy of every advertisement
They are lodged with the nomination.
The advertisement
What the ad has to say.
- Where
- In Australia, in English.
- Position
- The title, or a description. One advertisement can cover more than one position.
- Skills
- The skills or experience required.
- Who
- The approved sponsor’s name, or the recruitment agency’s. If TalentWell runs the vacancy, our name on the ad satisfies this.
- Salary
- Required if annual earnings are below AUD 96,400. A range is acceptable.
Where it counts
Where it has to be advertised.
Accepted
A prominent or professional recruitment website with national reach; industry-specific recruitment websites in significant use; LinkedIn’s recruitment platform (not a post visible only to your connections); national print published at least monthly, or national radio; your own website — only if you are an accredited sponsor.
Not accepted
General classifieds sites. A social media post on its own. A notice in the shop window.
One trap: if you made an Australian citizen or permanent resident in the same occupation redundant in the four months before you lodge, your advertising must have happened after that redundancy — and you must tell Home Affairs about it.
Exemptions
When you do not have to do it at all.
There are no occupation-based exemptions any more. The old 457 carve-outs are gone, and there is none for pharmacists as a shortage occupation.
There is an exemption under Australia’s international trade obligations. Labour market testing is not required where the pharmacist is applying in one of the exempt categories and is a citizen, national or permanent resident of Canada, Chile, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore or the United Kingdom.
Read that twice. Three of the five overseas registers we recruit from — New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada — are on that list. Ireland and the United States are not.
The exemption is not automatic and depends on the category the applicant applies under, so confirm it with a registered migration agent before you rely on it. We are recruiters, not migration agents, and we will tell you when a question belongs to someone else.
Where we fit
The search that doubles as your evidence file.
We run the local search properly before anyone mentions sponsorship, on the channels that count for labour market testing, with our name on the advertisement and the record kept. If the local market delivers, you have a pharmacist without a visa process. If it does not, your nomination has a clean evidence file behind it instead of a scramble.
Current as at September 2026, from the Department of Home Affairs labour market testing guidance. Immigration rules change. This is general information, not migration advice.
Next step
Tell us about the vacancy.
You will get the fee in writing, a view on whether the role is fillable as written, and a realistic time to fill — before you commit to anything.