Across healthcare, aged care, construction, engineering, mining, and the skilled trades, employers are facing the same reality.
They are advertising.
They are interviewing.
They are retraining.
And they are still short of the people they need.
It is easy to assume this reflects your recruitment or your workplace.
In many cases, it does not.
It reflects a structural labour shortage that sponsorship was designed to help address.
The challenge is that most employers have never had sponsorship explained in a way that fits how a business actually runs.
This article looks at what truly makes sponsorship viable, and why having the right legal back office is central to that.
If your key roles appear on Australia’s skilled migration list, it is for a reason.
Government data shows there are not enough people locally to fill those roles.
Not just in your business.
Not just in your region.
Across the board.
That is why more job ads and more local recruiters often do not change the outcome.
The pool is too small.
Understanding that this is a labour market issue, not a failure on your part, is the first step. It explains why you feel like you are working hard on recruitment and still not seeing the stability you want.
A common filter in job descriptions is:
“Only candidates with full work rights should apply.”
It sounds reasonable.
It feels efficient.
In practice, it filters by visa status, not by skill or long term potential.
Many temporary visas are not designed for long term roles with one employer. Some have hour limits. Some have built in time restrictions. Others do not easily support family members joining the worker.
Meanwhile, highly skilled candidates who could commit to your business for years can only enter Australia through a structured migration pathway, such as sponsorship.
If you only ever look at candidates who already hold full work rights, you are often excluding the very people who could bring the most stability to your workforce.
Sponsorship is not just a form. It is a legal framework.
For it to be viable, three areas need to align.
The role
It must match a skilled occupation as defined in law. This is based on duties, not job titles.
The business
It must meet eligibility requirements, including compliance, structure, and financial capacity.
The candidate
They must meet criteria around qualifications, experience, English language requirements, and sometimes skills assessments.
These assessments are detailed and are not something an employer should be expected to interpret alone. That is the work of a legal team that understands the migration system and how it interacts with real businesses.
A strong legal partner acts as your back office for sponsorship.
That means:
clarifying whether your roles and business are likely to qualify
mapping out the correct visa pathway
managing documentation and lodgement
keeping you informed in clear, practical language
Your role is to keep running your organisation and to provide the information requested.
The legal team manages the system behind the scenes.
This is what turns sponsorship from something overwhelming into something structured and manageable.
Employers are not failing at recruitment. They are trying to solve a structural workforce problem with tools that were never designed for it.
Once you understand where the real constraints are, and how sponsorship fits into the picture, you can start building a workforce strategy that is stable rather than reactive.
If you would like to know whether sponsorship might be an option for your business, you can begin with a simple high level check:
👉 60-Second Business Eligibility Check
solvi.com.au/hire-international-workers-eligibility-checklist