Australian manufacturers recorded 53 % recruitment difficulty in June quarter 2026. The Filipino trades that fill the gap — welders, fitters, machinists, sheetmetal workers, maintenance fitters — are on the Core Skills list. General production and assembly roles are not, and we say so.
The trades manufacturers are short of are on the Core Skills Occupation List: welders, metal fabricators, sheetmetal workers, fitters and turners, metal machinists (CNC), toolmakers, maintenance fitters, and production and engineering managers. The Philippines supplies all of them — from electronics and automotive plants around Manila and Cebu, from shipyards, and from the Gulf fabrication industry.
General production workers, assemblers, machine operators and forklift drivers are not on the list and cannot be sponsored in the Core Skills stream; some regional DAMAs include production roles, and we check that for your location.
CNC and conventional machining tasks, welding to procedure, sheetmetal fabrication from drawing, mechanical fitting and alignment, at Prime Search's Makati workshop — with your production manager watching live. Skills-assessment files for the mandatory trades are built in Manila in parallel with your nomination. Everything here is subject to applicable Australian skills assessment, licensing, occupation and visa requirements.
On the Australian side, the standard route is the Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482), Core Skills stream: your company holds (or obtains) Standard Business Sponsor approval, advertises the role to the Australian labour market for the required period, and nominates the position at or above the Core Skills Income Threshold — AUD 79,423 from 1 July 2026 — or the market rate, whichever is higher. The occupation must be on the Core Skills Occupation List. The visa runs for up to four years, with a permanent pathway through the Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) — Direct Entry where eligible, or the Temporary Residence Transition stream usually after two years of eligible sponsored employment. Home Affairs lodgements are made by a registered migration agent, a legal practitioner or your company itself; we prepare the recruitment, skills-assessment and Philippine-compliance file and coordinate — we do not provide Australian immigration advice.
As Metal Machinist (First Class) 323214 where the role is a skilled machinist setting up and programming; pure machine-minding roles are not on the list.
Only the trades on the Core Skills list are sponsorable on the standard route; we tell you at feasibility which roles qualify.
For welders, fabricators and fitters from the Philippines, yes.
General information for employers, not legal or migration advice. Rules change; we re-verify before each hire.