The biggest "barrier," if you can call it that, to solving the IT skills gap is the E-3 visa program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-3_visa https://en.wikiped

The biggest "barrier," if you can call it that, to solving the IT skills gap is the E-3 visa program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-3_visa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-3_visa It's a reciprocal visa program between Australia and the United States. Australia offers Americans the friendly 457 visa and the US offers Australians the friendly E-3 visa. It's an independent and generous quota compared to the H-1B visa. It's surreal to me reading people weighing in so heavily about the difficulty in hiring Australians and ignoring the elephant in the room. If you are a decently skilled Australian in IT, you get up and move to Silicon Valley. Why? * More money. * More respect. * In the center of your industry. * Paid travel! This is the same complaint New Zealand has had about Australia for years too. Kiwis move to Australia for the similar reasons. Background: I've been on a 457 for two and a half years. Everyone I know from the US or Europe on a 457 is in Australia for the "lifestyle." The rest are people who came to Australia to study or work from place like India/China/Philippines[1], converted to a 457, and are working their way to permanent residence and finally citizenship. And you'd be unsurprised how many move to work in the US or Europe after earning their Australian citizenship. [1] http://www.immi.gov.au/media/statistics/pdf/457-state-territory-summay-report-jan13.pdf http://www.immi.gov.au/media/statistics/pdf/457-state-territ...