New Zealand’s immigration settings will be changed to include certain pay requirements for those seeking permanent residence under the skilled migrant category and for people in unskilled but "well paid" work, the government has announced.
Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse has also proposed changes to temporary migration settings, including a three-year limit to be followed by a minimum stand-down period before a person can apply for another lower-skilled Essential Skills visa. He also announced that some South Island temporary migrants will be given the opportunity to apply for residence.
Following indications from Prime Minister Bill English that changes were coming, Woodhouse made the announcements in a speech in Queenstown on Wednesday. It follows an increasing level of political debate around New Zealand’s immigration settings, with annual net inflows hitting record levels above 70,000 in recent months. Read an overview of Labour’s stance, and comments from New Zealand First, further below.
Changes announced by Woodhouse also included making more points available for skilled work experience and some recognised post-graduate qualifications. Points for age will also increase for applicants aged 30-39 years old.
The changes will come into force from mid-August 2017. Read Immigration NZ's more detailed question and answer sheets on the announcements and proposals here.
Read the changes to permanent and temporary immigration settings announced by Woodhouse below:
Changes to permanent immigration settings include introducing two remuneration thresholds for applicants applying for residence under the Skilled Migrant Category (SMC), which will complement the current qualifications and occupation framework.
“One remuneration threshold will be set at the New Zealand median income of $48,859 a year for jobs that are currently considered skilled. The other threshold will be set at 1.5 times the New Zealand median income of $73,299 a year for jobs that are not currently considered skilled but are well paid,” Mr Woodhouse says.
“The SMC points table, under which individuals claim points towards their residence application, will also be realigned to put more emphasis on characteristics associated with better outcomes for migrants.
“Collectively these changes will improve the skill composition of the SMC and ensure we are attracting migrants who bring the most economic benefits to New Zealand.”
The Government is also proposing a number of changes to temporary migration settings to manage the number and settlement expectations of new migrants coming to New Zealand on Essential Skills work visas.
The changes include:
- The introduction of remuneration bands to determine the skill level of an Essential Skills visa holder, which would align with the remuneration thresholds being introduced for Skilled Migrant Category applicants
- The introduction of a maximum duration of three years for lower-skilled and lower-paid Essential Skills visa holders, after which a minimum stand down period will apply before they are eligible for another lower-skilled temporary work visa.
- Aligning the ability of Essential Skills visa holders to bring their children and partners to New Zealand with the new skill levels.
- Exploring which occupations have a seasonal nature and ensuring that the length of the visa aligns with peak labour demand.
“I want to make it clear that where there are genuine labour or skills shortages, employers will be able to continue to use migrant labour to fill those jobs,” Mr Woodhouse says.
“However, the Government has a Kiwis first approach to immigration and these changes are designed to strike the right balance between reinforcing the temporary nature of Essential Skills work visas and encouraging employers to take on more Kiwis and invest in the training to upskill them.
“We have always said that we constantly review our immigration policies to ensure they are fit for purpose and today’s announcement is another example of this Government’s responsible, pragmatic approach to managing immigration.”
Public consultation on the changes to temporary migration settings closes on 21 May, with implementation planned for later this year.
For more information visit:
www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/media-centre/news-notifications/skilled-migrant-category-changes
Some South Island temporary migrants will also be given the opportunity to apply for residence under changes announced by Woodhouse:
“There has been a significant growth in the number of lower-skilled temporary migrants in the South Island who help fill genuine labour shortages and have become well-settled here,” Mr Woodhouse says.
“However, due to current temporary migration settings, many of these lower-skilled temporary migrants have no pathway to residence.
“Today’s announcement delivers on our 2015 commitment to provide that group of migrants in the South Island with a pathway to residence.
“The policy will allow eligible migrants to be granted an initial Work to Residence temporary visa, which would make them eligible for residence in two more years provided they stay in the same industry and region.
“Many of these migrants are already well settled in New Zealand and make a valuable contribution to their communities. The requirement to remain in the same region for a further two years after being granted residence ensures that commitment to the region continues.
“It will also enable employers to retain an experienced workforce that has helped meet genuine regional labour market needs.
“My National colleagues in the South Island have advocated strongly on behalf their constituents throughout the development of this policy, so I’m pleased the Government has been able to deliver on our commitment to enable this cohort of migrant workers to remain in their communities.”
To be eligible, temporary visa holders must:
- Currently be on an Essential Skills visa for a job in the South Island and have been on one in the South Island for five years or more.
- Be 55 years old or younger
- Hold current employment that is full-time and meets market rates and their employers would need to have no significant adverse record with the Labour Inspectorate or INZ.
- Meet standard residence health and character requirements.
For more information, visit www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/media-centre/news-notifications/south-island-pathway.
Labour looking at student vs skilled worker points gap
Labour Party leader Andrew Little said earlier on Wednesday morning that better management of how work visas were awarded was required. Of the 42,000 issued over the past year, a lot were for occupations that could be done by locals, he said.
“We’ve just got to accept the fact that at the moment, with so many migrants setting in Auckland, Auckland is absolutely packed to the gunwales now, absolutely chocka. The price we pay for that is congestion, it’s overcrowded schools, public services that can’t do the job anymore,” he said on TV1.
About 130,000-140,000 migrants had settled in Auckland over the past few years, Little said. “It is putting too big a strain on the city.”
“No question about it – we have to cut back. If only to say that we can have a bit of a breather and catch up, build more houses, sort out and making sure the schools aren’t overcrowded, sort out our transport so that we’re not having the sort of congestion that we have in our biggest city.”
Labour is yet to release a detailed immigration policy. However, it is understood to be researching changes to the skilled migrant points system among other policy changes.
In particular, Labour is said to be looking at the dichotomy between how former student migrants who find a job in New Zealand after completing their study may have an easier path to meeting points requirements to stay because they studied in New Zealand, than a more highly skilled person applying from overseas with a job offer in an area of absolute skills shortage.
Labour has increasing concern about an increase in the level of migrants – including permanent visa holders – employed in low-skilled occupations, with trends raising issues about the quality levels of inward migration.
Its immigration spokesman Iain Lees-Galloway has pointed to MBIE documents released under the Official Information Act showing the Ministry has noted that temporary migration is increasingly becoming a permanent feature of New Zealand’s workforce, with certain sectors increasingly relying on a ‘permanent pool’ of temporary migrant labour.
Labour is also said to be concerned that skilled migrant wages have been falling and that they are effectively undercutting wages in some industries, based on OIA releases from MBIE.
NZF: 'Reduce net immigration to 10,000 per year & make them work in the regions'
Meanwhile, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said immigration numbers needed to be reduced to near 10,000 net per year. Many skilled workers should be bonded to work in the regions for five years before they could relocate to cities such as Auckland, he said.
“They are fiddling with the issue while the plain fact is foreign workers will still be able to come here when employers claim they can’t get Kiwis," Peters said.
“We have 139,000 Kiwis out of work and many of them are desperate to get a job. Statistics show in the February 2017 year we had a record 128,800 migrant arrivals and in the same period 71,300 more migrants arrived in New Zealand than left."
73 Comments
I can't see anywhere that specifically refers to $73k being contained within a valid, signed, employment agreement.
So I think it is safe to assume they only need an offer letter. Something I am sure the current employers can easily provide via a simple 5k "admin fee" being added to the current "donation"
PAYE payments and annual Tax return would tell the true story. Assuming immigration authorities actually check these things. Will reduce the paid by cash under the table rort but not the 'donation to the business in exchange for a job offer at an inflated salary to get a visa ' scam.
Three places.
1) Court cases - Even MSM manage to report on a few of them every now and then.
2) The fact that "chef" is on the long term shortages, and we have an "immediate shortage" in Jockeys, Farmers, Skydive instructors, and bakers.
3) Speaking to some foreign students, all of whom have "jobs", most of whom get paid, and none of whom pay tax.
If it was a genuinely skilled, in demand profession why would anyone be offering a salary of just $48k/year? Highlights just how ridiculous the system is. Also it should be banded on salary and age, it's expected a university graduate at the start of their career might earn $70k/year but a 50 year old well into his or her career on $70k would be much less beneficial for the country.
This is a little off point, but I think it says a lot about us as a country that we accept that a person qualified to do a "skilled" job can earn less than the median income, and we accept without question the existence of well paid not skilled jobs.
It is hardly encouragement for young (or old) people to go out and learn a trade. More so if it turns out it is cheaper to import skills than produce them at home.
It is not $49k aggregate, the hourly wage has to be $23.5/hour but I am not sure how that will be measured. I included my employment agreement in my residence application which had no dollar amount mentioned. My IRD papers only revealed my historical monthly income with no information on the number of hours worked.
It will be fun to watch how the hospitality industry reacts to these new announcements; even duty managers and sous chefs working in good establishments earn in the range of $20-22 per hour. You need to be at the top (head chef or general manager) of the food chain in that exploitative sector to make $24+ hour.
Now will cost slightly more for students as first they pay for job letter and will work on low or no pay and now what will happen is the cost of tax will go up, which they will have to reimburse back to the employer.
Also rich people can start business or tempt busineses to pay high salary (Of course only on paper) and get extra point.
Policies are created with loopholes.
That is an increased risk. I hope the Nats understand more compliance monitoring will be required following this move. Bringing such drastic policies changes without increasing the number of Labour Inspectorate leaves the system susceptible to fraud and deception.
... so , are Filippino cow squeezers and Indian courier fast & furious drivers going to be re-classified as skilled workers ... and be given a pretty decent pay increase on the rubbish they're being paid now ...
Or ... are Kiwi employers going to be forced to stop using cheap imported labour , and start jacking up their ideas , employing locals on a liveable wage , and offering some ongoing training ?
If things were that simple why stop there. Let's just legislate everyone a minimum salary of $120,000 per annum tax free and all live like kings?
Or course, kiwi employers might move the production side of their business off-shore as the only alternative to going bankrupt. Or just close their doors and import alternative products from China. Or India. Or Vietnam.
Hm, clearly the problem in this "free" market is people can do what they want. It's socialist nightmare. Certainly Mao never had to put up with it.
The reality is that the odds are stacked against us in terms of manufacturing.
We have no real natural commodities used in manufacturing. i.e. Minerals and oil.
We are as far away from the rest of the consuming world as you can be without being on a different planet. So transport is slow and/or expensive.
Our minimum wage and working conditions are positively Utopian compared to every other developing and third world nation, so can't compete on price.
Alternatively
One could argue we are great at manufacturing. We build sub-standard houses on prime bits of land then sell them to foreigners for an exorbitant profit.
I take your point Ralph but I believe the intention is to not bring in folk that are earning less than the median wage, assuming I guess that the higher wage is an indication of productivity/usefulness/skill shortage. BTW our median income is actually quite a lot less than $45k at about $32K before tax for all adults which is below the living wage and only just a bit more than the minimum wage for a forty hour week.
It certainly isn't our high wages that are preventing us from being (more of) a niche exporter of manufacturing excellence. Good example is Switzerland, just a bit bigger than us and an average income of about $90,000 yet they are selling manufactured products to the world and doing very nicely thank you.
It's probably a cultural thing but you just have to wonder about this "service economy" experiment. I don't know of anywhere that's got rich mowing each others lawns.
I agree with your points. That is why I don't think we should label the hard working folk up at the coalface and having a go "fat cats" and tax them out of existence. Any successful export business in NZ is up against the world (literally) with very little help.
Instead of focusing on how we can make a better standard of living for everyone in a world that doesn't owe us a living we spend our time talking about:
1. How everything is John Key's fault, or
2. How wealth is like a cake that falls from the heavens and the main issue is how I get more of this cake (no idea where it comes from or thought as to how to make it bigger), or
3. How we need "change", (the empty mantra), because we are "against" everything (no solutions) and not "for" anything, or
4. How foreigners are out to get our jobs and houses so lets have an election based on Xenophobia.
If you are a hard working business person in NZ the best things would seem to be to keep your head down until the revolution comes, when the ideologues will turn up, sink the boat, burn down the house and shoot the goose whilst pretending they are saving the planet.
At which point I guess you have to migrate.
Yes, it is hard to compete with the world and I have the greatest respect for our folk that succeed. My son is a recently qualified boat builder and their small yard here in the Far North is busy building custom power cats for New Caledonian and French Polynesian owners. It's a demanding job both physically and mentally with significant risks and modest rewards. I just wonder where we're going when I hear about 59 people on over $100K doing non-jobs at ATEED (Auckland council outfit) or the army of seat warmers at Fonterra HQ or just about everywhere you look. Many in useless or even counter productive roles. What's all that about, a system that penalises our real wealth creators and rewards the wasters and parasites.
I don't think immigration is the cause of or answer for our problems but Xenephobia is the irrational fear of foreigners - folk concerned about access to housing or jobs from immigration pressure are not being irrational IMHO.
We do sure have housing and jobs problems.
Our education system costs a fortune and produces a product few people want at a price nobody can afford. But it is the fruit of 30 years of public policy, endless politicking and expansion that shows no end as the western world swings to the more socialist end of the spectrum.
Our housing problems are not helped by high immigration but as you say immigration is not close to any primary causation. So I don't like the way the election is leaning toward who will blame most on foreigners. To blame foreigners for your woes and failings when they aren't the real cause is a little bit escapist if not irrational.
>"Our education system costs a fortune and produces a product few people want at a price nobody can afford. But it is the fruit of 30 years of public policy, endless politicking and expansion that shows no end as the western world swings to the more socialist end of the spectrum."
You could argue quite to the contrary, however, that too many young people are bearing the cost of training because companies are no longer willing to hire them out of high school and train them, as they were thirty or forty years ago. Instead, they're demanding degrees but the cost is being born in parts by the young and wider taxpayers.
You see a way higher price for this education in countries such as the USA than you do in more socialist countries, where a well-trained workforce has been viewed as a valuable contributor to the future of the country.
Re property and foreign investors, see the wider analyses available out there on the role of foreign investment in a number of markets around the world, and on the slow-down since China (in particular) has clamped down on capital outflows. And note that people are in the vast majority of cases asking for such policies in conjunction with changes of policy around tax and property investment, recognising the role of privileging property vs. other investments.
it's simply not useful to strawman people's desire for policy adjustments a la limiting foreign purchases to new builds, a stamp duty, or both (along with the other reforms).
It's stepping back in time in the conversation to when cries of xenophobia were used to silence any discussion of the role of foreign investors in markets around the world.
In simple terms the education product in this country is so unaffordable the only way they can get their "customers" to buy it is for the government to make billions of dollars of interest free loans to them.
A large portion of which won't every be repaid so will get dumped back onto the tax payer.
Yeah, agree. And I'd suggest the last thing we want to see is it go the way of the USA...as students' ability to borrow increases (via the government, in our case), the universities continue to escalate fees (while being run primarily as businesses) and young people become more and more indebted in order to get any job.
At the same time, degrees get devalued because the market doubts the rigour being applied by some universities and faculties - including vis-a-vis the increasing accounts of students being passed who shouldn't be, simply because they've paid a lot of money (cash for degrees, the market perceives) - then driving young people to seek Masters degrees and the additional cost they require in order to compete for jobs in the market.
So we end up with both education and housing being changed from something regarded as a good investment for the country and its future into business investments, at the ultimate expense of those following...
In the economics section of an encyclopedia set I have here from the 1970's it describes the established pattern of the cycle where you have a surplus of educated people but no jobs. The result is civil unrest, this educated underclass have the intelligence and motivation to pull it off. We march steadily toward that point, and keep importing the fuel via physically and culturally different people.
I saw an interesting doco. A guy in the 70s working as a stock broker and supplementing his income by working as a conductor on the subway at nights. This is based in the US. The financial service sector was lowly paid, then in the 80s the same guy is making squillions in the same job, doing the same thing.
Real workers are not rewarded like they should be. Money fiddlers are severely over compensated for performing magic tricks with photo copiers.
Agreed, kudos to your son. One of the unseen social and economic costs of immigration pressure on housing will be that it becomes harder for would be entrepreneurs to get started particularly in the main centers as the cost of living increases. And hiring truly productive people becomes harder and harder. This is particularly true of knowledge based jobs.
The global experiment with monetary policy just shows that increasing money supply increases the value of assets, not the growth of the real economy, where people produce products and services.
National's experiment with immigration is an ill-conceived short-sighted market distortion that did not need to happen.
The skill classifications are purely reliant on the employer's discretionary disclosures. A dodgy employer could introduce the following tweaks in the agreement:
a) Cow squeezer = Bovine technician
b) Courier delivery guy = Logistics worker
and get the job reclassified as medium to high skilled in the eyes of INZ. I am sure no case officer would venture out to the cattle field in the middle of nowhere or follow a courier truck (with the F&F tendencies of the driver you alluded to) to observe the actual role of the applicants.
This all seems pointless to me until we start asking where do we want our population to be long term. Do we just want to ramp up then cut down our immigration every economic cycle and just see what happens long term?
New Zealander's need to be asked what sort of population size do we want in New Zealand and why?
LOL - brilliant.
The very reason we *must* have change is that the current government is a known quantity (that we can't live with - so the story goes). If that is true then how can the consequences be unintended?
The very foundation for unintended consequences is unknown variables. If they can't even detail the specific changes that this "change" they speak of will improve anything then one of these is true;
(a) the opposition does not represent any useful change (its a mirage or a lie), or
(b) the change is in fact unknown, which means the foundation exists for unintended consequences.
I suspect (b) because the word change here is used like an empty headed mantra.
It's official. NZ is the most prosperous country in the world..............
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2017/03/new-zealand-housing-most-un…
.........................as our PM says that it is a sign of prosperity and good for the country..........but the question to be asked - is it ?
Think and Vote
Riff-Raff not consulted
headline - Government says it has toughened immigration policy
In the end, whether it's a cynical move or not, this will play well politically.
It has been done in consultation with business and the major lobby groups have applauded it.
But the Government gets a headline saying it has toughened immigration policy - something that it knows won't do it any harm at the polls.
Iiam Dann
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=118…
Remember Dipton Bill has recently been told by a Trucking Company they can't get drivers
Yes Dipton Bill's door is wide open to the influencers
Here is Michael Reddell's comment.
https://croakingcassandra.com/2017/04/19/a-modest-step-that-ignores-the…
MacroBusiness in Australia comments on the bidding war between their political parties on immigration reform (like us they start from a high, extremely permissive immigration situation)
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/04/fake-greens-howl-racism-457-vi…
And MacroBusiness says the Aussie Labour party needs to put a card down....
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/04/show-us-immigration-policy-bil…
Michael Reddell - where do they sleep - lot of beds needed
In 2015/16, a staggering 192,688 people were granted temporary work visas in New Zealand plus 90,000 people were granted student visas. That's 282,000 in addition to 126,000 PLT migrants
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/91711698/michael-reddell-a-mod…
Michael Reddell is always well worth a read. The final two paragraphs sum it up for me:
Rapid population growth – without great new economic opportunities – simply skews the economy inwards. Successfully making it in global markets is the only reliable path for a small country to get and stay rich, and yet the relative size of our export sector is shrinking.
It is time to give up the "big New Zealand" or "big Auckland" ambitions that seem to have appealed to our political leaders for generations. Focus instead on maximising what we can achieve with our own limited natural resources and our own abundantly talented skilled hardworking people.
Well noted, David.
I am familiar with a company that manufactures air cleaning/purification units for large commercial buildings. Their business is 100% export and they employ approx. 20 people. All maintenance is undertaken from NZ, remotely. The company is profitable.
It can be done 'in little old NZ'.
Jsut to note that you can't add those numbers together (many student and work visa recipients will already be in the PLT numbers). also many of the work visas will be for quite short stays, and the approvals will include new visas for people already here, who might have gained their first visa in earlier years.
The PLT and total migration net numbers have been quite similar.
There is a bit of a contradiction in the policies and statements.
They would like people to take jobs outside of Auckland BUT you are more likely to earn the minimum requirements for wages in Auckland. Maybe better to have an Auckland and non-Auckland minimum requirement?
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