Another 16,020 people arrived in New Zealand on work visas in February, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, which incorporates Immigration NZ.
That number was down 10.4% from the 17,874 people who arrived on work visas in February last year, but up hugely on the 285 that arrived in February 2022 when pandemic travel restrictions were still in place.
In the first two months of 2024, 36,219 people have arrived on work visas, compared to 34,644 in the first two months of last year, but that's still well below pre-Covid levels when 50,658 people arrived on work visas in the first two months of 2019.
The latest arrivals pushed the total number of people in NZ on work visas up to 194,181 at the end of February, and up by 63,252 (+48.3%) compared to February last year.
That's still below the peak of 222,054 people who were in NZ on work visas at the end of March 2020, although that figure tends to understate the affect that work visa inflows have had on total population numbers.
That's because the Government introduced the 2021 Resident Visa Scheme, which has since closed, allowing people who had already been in NZ on work visas for at least three years to obtain a fast-tracked residence visa.
So far just over 135,000 people have transferred from work to residence visas under the scheme, and when those numbers are taken into account, along with the people in the country on work visas, it has pushed NZ's population up by almost 330,000.
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35 Comments
Do we have enough jobs for these new arrivals?
You don't think they'd seriously measure something like this do you? Houses, jobs, infrastructure...do we have enough?... who knows...makes house prices go up...that's all that matters really.
I am seriously, job listings are dropping like a stone... and yet more people are arriving with jobs.
Easy pezzy. Form a company, advertise briefly for some obscure role, then get your family/cousie from country X to apply with their BS CV. Then create the inflated salary that gets booked but never paid out.
No one is policing this stuff.
Data sharing between IRD and INZ? I mean, wouldn't an IRD number be one of the things an immigrant would need to qualify which then becomes the unique ID?
I suppose if you wanted to keep the charade up you'd just deposit the equivalent PAYE to IRD each month.
......you think they have staff to manually deal with data matches? Even IF they did it.
Let's stop pretending we have any interest in controlling this. The limit is the number of planes into the country.
Yep at this rate the increasingly reasonable and well-founded fear of stepping onto a Boeing 'Screamliner' or 737 (Death) Max will do more to control immigration levels than any government policy.
Sure. There will be convenience stores, liquor stores, takeaway places, restaurants, Uber cars, and vape shops springing up on every street corner. All staffed by immigrants who pay their wages back to their employer's overseas bank account for the duration of their "pathway to residency" process.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018929732/immigratio…
Inflation is going nowhere as low skilled immigration continues alongside high-skilled emigration.
We will be doomed to pay increasingly more simply to keep our heads above water (council rates, energy prices, road taxes, healthcare and education spending, etc.) with no one to do the smart work in building and maintaining all of that.
Yep. Another highly trained professional leaving partners work place today. This time an anesthetist. In place another truckload of inadequately trained non English speaking nurses arrive.
Heaps of foreign 'nurses' now applying for nursing jobs. Much reluctance in employing them. Some have absolutely no idea what they are doing and are a burden on the 'real' nurses who have to cover. And so the good ones head to Aussie in frustration.
Have we homes for all these people??
TTP
I'm constantly surprised by the level of ignorance. It seems like you don't understand how a work visa works based on that statement.
Young travelers don't need a job offer to obtain a work visa if that's what you're getting at.
That's an ugly way to keep wages down while pumping up the price of pretty well everything else. We seem to be incapable of learning anything.
Great ! ....more fodder for keeping wages/salaries down and rents up ....NZ is surely a greedy, short sighted little country.
I hope ALL the arrivals either have at least a professional/technical qualification or substantial capital for a business - sarc ! .....while all immigrants should not be allowed a NZ Passport for at least 15 years, as that would weed out those using NZ, as just a stepping stone to other countries. Then we would see who TRULY wants to come here - or not ???
The mantra is house prices must stay up AT ALL COSTS !
NZ - selling itself short for 50 years ....
NZ is surely a greedy, short sighted little country. .... I've been saying it for years... great comment
And none of them have proper licences (yes, I am generalizing) and they all want cars. But can't due to licence conditions.
You guys are addicted to linking everything to house prices.
Directly and indirectly it is linked to house prices. Because our financial resources are allocated to the Ponzi, we need cheap labor to run the economy. We don't have competitive productive sectors and businesses. Cheap labor alleviates that to some extent.
Well, house prices are pretty much our entire economy in NZ
Glad the new government are cracking down on immigration and we now on the right track.
Lol
lol poor Erica, what a hospital pass!!! I can see her walking into the Immigration Department and observing...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b-DsPazO9c
Not sure they campaigned on reducing immigration? I don't think any political party will get much traction with reducing immigration unless they want to fully restructure Immigration NZ (incl headcount reduction).
In the mean time, we're stuck with unelected bureaucracy with goals and purpose that are at odds with Political ideology. Immigration NZ aren't employed to not process visa applications. Do we set up immigration quotas, where for 6 months of the year INZ are busy until they exhaust the quotas, and then sit around for 6 months?
The National Party has put forward a proposal to revert to the previous immigration target of 45,000 to 50,000 people annually....and you believed that? lol
I don't believe for a second that any political party will achieve that deliberately unless they fully restructure INZ with mass redundancies and a completely new direction.
Or by accident.
The Labour Govt let 178,000 immigrants into NZ in one year alone. And they claim to ostensibly care about the 'working classes'. And of course 'global warming'.
If you guys want to build a new house, you're welcome to use the cheap new arrivals, but I won't be.
What a joke.
In the first two months of 2024, 36,219 people have arrived on work visas, compared to 34,644 in the first two months of last year
Looks like your team are going to beat Labour this year Wingman?
As expected as National hasn't changed any immigration or visa settings
Migration and travel stats out tomorrow
From memory it was about 120k. Not sure where you got that figure?
When 50,000 was the number of permanent residenct granted it was over triple the OECD average. Strangely OECD countries with long term low rates of adding permenent residents are wealthier than us and pulling away: Norway, Denmark, South Jorea, Japan. Do our politicians confuse GDP and GDP per capita.
Strangely...
More like: 'As expected...'
Work visa applicants have up to 12 months to arrive in NZ after their visa is issued, so anyone arriving now could have been issued their visa up to 12mths ago.
Could but unusual. Often Europeans on their OE visit Australia first so some would be delayed. This is work for a statistician
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