Almost 30,000 migrants who were already in this country on work visas, applied for a new class of residence visa in its first month of operation.
The Government announced the new 2021 Resident Visa scheme in September last year, to stem an exodus of migrant workers, many of whom were returning to their homelands when their visas expired.
However border restrictions due to the Covid pandemic meant many could not return to resume work here and many new migrants were also prevented from entering the country, leading to a skills shortage.
To retain migrant workers who were already here, the new residency visa was introduced, and it was estimated that up to 165,000 migrant workers would be eligible for it.
Applications for the new visa opened on December 1 last year and the latest figures from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment show that 28,557 applications for the new visas were received in the first month.
The new scheme is seen as a one off and qualifying migrant workers have until July 31 this year to apply for the new residence visa.
The latest MBIE figures show that there were 175,347 people in this country on work visas at the end of December last year, which was the lowest number since August 2018.
The numbers have declined steadily since they peaked at 220,725 in March 2020.
There has also been a steady decline in the number of overseas students in this country.
Their numbers have declined from a peak of 86,115 in October 2019 to 45,498 at the end of December last year.
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86 Comments
Thank goodness, we can keep wages as low as possible... Please allow more in labour, NZ born kiwis for some reason won't work for an unliveable wage - lazy & pathetic!
The lazy sods. They'll want roofs over their heads next. The cheek of it all.
That's the worst - kiwis are so entitled these days
Finally, some new people who understand that not being exploited is no longer a human right in NZ. The farmers will be rubbing their hands with glee, more money coming their way for the luxury wool sheds they will cram full of poor souls.
And only one per room
In the UK the inter-generational affect of hundreds of thousands of families and whole neighbourhoods where no one has ever had a job are marked. Education is not valued, discipline is unnecessary and the values are much more in-line with their community that their country.
Take a trip through the suburbs of Portsmouth (a lovely south England town) to see the effect of immigration.
Is this a product of immigration or welfare state?
Both but driven by immigration.
I call BS.
How come they still have the same problems (even worse) after Brexit and reigning in on immigration? The've even been losing lots of migrants because of hostile policies.
Rubbish unchecked immigration went on for decades whilst the UK officially left the EU in Jan 2020 lol. Your expecting this to reverse in 23 months?
Why was there unchecked immigration, or at least high levels of immigration? Might that be the ideology of cheap labour and increased realestate demand under Neoliberalism?
You SOUND like you think that all the problems which quite rightly caused brexit and took 40 years to create should be solved in 24 months while facing the worst pandemic in a 100 years. Of course you can't be saying that because that would be a stupid idea, but it does sound like it.
No they sound like they believe the problems created by Neoliberalism aren't undone by just removing yourself from a trading union and restricting immigration, as it just causes alternate issues. You have to also change your internal ideologies away from both Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism in your political parties as they are both damaging to the commons and social structures at large.
Neoliberalism.
Or penalising hard work and rewarding asset speculation?
Neoliberalism.
That's some seriously outdated and regressive thinking.
Immigration or Neoliberalism?
Replacements for the kiwis they wont let back home. Priorities?
Replacements for those that will leave because life doesn't stack up here, partly because immigrants keeping wages too low for everyone and keep house prices too high. Young kiwi's should absolutely be leaving.
If migrants keep wages low, how can they afford paying higher prices? Where's the logic in that?
The truth is, house prices are/have been going up because borrowing has become cheaper (despite all counter measures like Foreign Buyers Ban, Residents only purchases) due to quantitative easing and tax advantages in owning residential property (this has changed slightly against investors/landlords but some fundamental advantages still exist).
It is Kiwis that are pushing up prices because everyone wants to ride the gravvy train or has FOMO and it is Kiwis that are in charge of the country and who make fiscal and monetary policies.
It is Kiwis who vote these people in and refuse to vote for people that challenge the status quo (like TOP proposing to end the gravvy train).
So if you want to blame someone, blame your fellow Kiwis. Anything else is just racist blather.
Yep. Somehow low-paid migrant workers are engaging in highly speculative behaviour in overvalued assets with their non-existent bank of mum and dad.
More migrants = more tenants fighting over the houseing stock = rents go up = house prices go up
The cause and effect is fairly simple... unless you think more people living in the country has no impact on house prices.
This is true and is a byproduct of 1980's Neoliberalism, causing the opening up of global markets, creating international competition between workers, businesses and markets and the privatisation, deregulation and financialisation of almost everything, including realestate.
Ok I could have explained that better. When I say higher prices I'm talking through providing rental pressure and rental pressure supports house prices. And I'm not saying that's the only reason house prices are high either and agree it's also the cost of borrowing being too low.
I'm certainly not blaming immigrants personally for anything. I'm more blaming Kiwis for collectively wanting house prices to be stay higher than is reasonable for young people to make a life here, the cost being that they will leave, and no one seems to care about that because they are replaceable with people who have lower expectations, who will pay the rents and keep the demand for housing up.
Most people who can front the deposit requirements can easily leverage and borrow the other 90% LVR for property purchase via a mortgage broker. It is in the mortgage broker's best interest to get your loan deal across the line otherwise, there won't get their commission from the bank and all their work was for nothing. Getting deals across the line through financial engineering is the true skill/ value add of any mortgage broker.
China's clampdown on capital outflows in 2016 seemed to have an immediate and marked effect (especially in Auckland). And in past coverage here on Interest it was highlighted that in one quarter, less than 50% of house sales in Auckland's Northern suburbs had a New Zealand citizen on any side of the transaction.
Quite obviously, the numbers involved were absolutely significant.
At the same time, the number of buyers required to push up the market would likely have been far smaller than the overall number of incoming population - the marginal buyer effect. So it's absolutely feasible for both house prices to have been affected, and wages to have been suppressed - by different subsets.
This of course does not change the fact that Kiwis' speculation and Kiwi politicians' speculation and fixing the market bear the bigger part of the blame.
Their logic is to deliberately ignore the effect of the additional wealth immigration into the country, and focus only on the cheaper labour immigration that is demanded by businesses and their sycophantic government representatives. Everyone conveniently forgets that government is not made up of one party but an amalgamation of parties fighting over policies, and that even within parties there are factions that hold Neoliberal, Neoconservative, and Socialist ideologies.
Also I don't agree at all that TOP would bring about any fundamental change to the effective functioning of government.
Immigrants do not suppress wages. This is a crackpot economic theory that Trump tried to deploy. Doesn’t show up in the numbers.
Exactly, that's why during the last two years when the borders have been closed and people couldn't come in companies have not been clamouring for migrant workers and lamenting the pressure to raise wages to attract people, and people haven't been changing jobs to get large pay rises. Just hasn't been happening at all.
This is combined with the fact that lot of foreign workers do overtime and work Saturdays with NO extra pay and don't complain about the bullying, abuse and illegal employment activities in the office. Basically, they're taking the low wage and working more hours than necessary (even unrostered) and just management turns a blind eye because it helps boost their profitability and it's not like they're going to stop their staff volunteering their weekends to help boost the company's bottom line. I don't blame them.
They do this because many are from the South Asia continent and have to send money home to support their parents and families who have lost their jobs/ businesses/ livelihoods due to lockdowns in India, Sri Lanka, Bang, Thailand, and Phillipines. Also, they're in a situation of "Do or die" in NZ because if they don't have money, they'll easily be on the street within a couple of weeks when they exhaust their savings whilst carrying their familial obligations on their backs. Many keep their mouth shut and head low and working harder and harder as a game of survival of the fittest.
As a highly educated foreign Western expat, I can see it from their perspective however, they're undermining my livelihood particularly those doing the extra hours because I know that during the downturn, I will made redundant first so I'll just leave the country at that point in time. For kiwis with mortgages, this have a wider impact on them because us (Westerners) are unwilling to throw in those bonus hours and go the extra mile for the company unless your cronies have got your back.
Can we stop referring to our immigration policies as addressing a “skill shortage”. You look at the numbers and a huge proportion of the jobs are Kitchen hands, cleaning staff, retail workers. These are all important jobs, but the barrier to filling the roles isn’t a shortage of skills - they can’t be filled locally due to a shortage of wages on offer
Well yea, but then that also means exposing the issue of a 'skills shortage' within the professional roles as well, so no, we won't be talking about that.
What amuses me is how policy folk at the countries largest and least productive employer assume that potential students and young people are stupid.
I clearly remember talking amongst my friends about continuing with tertiary education, the drivers were clear, but all decisions were made in the clear knowledge of the potential earning power of our particular industries.
Can it be any wonder that we are 12000 nurses short?
Yup, 100%. Would have loved to chase the academic path that was unfolding for me as I progressed and settled into university life (took a few more years than others to be fair) but I was worried about falling even further behind. Now life pressures are intense that the option of going back or even part-time study are now non-existent - not only have we stuffed the initial learning window for students, we've also made it borderline impossible for them to be able to upskill. They're too busy trying to make ends meet or can't afford it due to accomodation costs. The over/under on a student loan isn't exactly favourable anymore either - more debt for what could well end up being not that much more income...
...unless you move overseas.
It would be ironic wouldn't it if CCCFA frowned on part time study fees in a mortgage application.
Expenses are expenses.
Nursing is many ways a trade shortage, surely we could entice a few into free training like our other tradies?
If training in essential skills shortage areas was free I would sign up immediately, as would many others and it would plug the professional gaps within 3-6 years. Even in education the government won't boost the number of 'scholarships' to dramatically increase the teacher stock on hand, or increase wages as needed while continuing to price fix wages for the first 7 years at a rate far lower than currency converted Australian teacher wages. It's deliberate economic negligence IMO and is not isolated to this Labour government, they are just continuing on from the low wages and lack of progressive wage policy in place from the long years of National government neglect before them.
You look at the numbers and a huge proportion of the jobs are Kitchen hands, cleaning staff, retail workers.
It appears you're more informed than everyone else. Can you show us which number are you referring to?
Please support your wild claims with some real data as the information I could find does not back your claims:
From 7 October 2019, the following changes to the Talent (Accredited Employer) Work visa Category will come into effect:
- An annual salary threshold increase from NZ$55,000 to NZ$79,560 based on a 40-hour week;
- Removal of the benefit to apply for a Permanent Resident Visa (PRV) where salary is NZ$90,000 or higher;
- Employers limited to being accredited for 24 months only.
The new salary threshold is 150% of the current median salary in New Zealand and will be updated each year in line with the median income.
https://www.ey.com/en_gl/tax-alerts/hc-alert--new-zealand-announces-sig…
See below for the 20/21 data from MBIE.
- Clerical and Administrative Workers - 1752
- Community and Personal Service Workers - 3255
- Labourers - 6216
- Machinery Operators and Drivers - 2007
- Managers - 6270
- Professionals - 4542
- Sales Workers - 2379
- Technicians and Trades Workers - 12957
- Grand Total - 39378
You are referring to a single category of work visa, used very infrequently.. Here is how it is done. Get an occupation, such as "Orchard worker" listed on the essential skills list. Once done you have far fewer hoops to jump through and criteria is much lower.
Do we really have a shortage of people able to do orchard work? Or is it because Orchards aren't willing to pay wages sufficient to justify people taking seasonal work away from their normal place of residence?
In regard to kiwifruit orchards, there is in fact a shortage of workers. Pay rates are now in excess of $30 per hour (noting that commonly up to $4 of that may be siphoned off by orchard managers and labour supply contractors if workers are not employed directly), but still substantially above minimum wage. On the plus side, we are gradually seeing some kiwis come back into orchard work.
However, the kiwifruit industry (Zespri specifically) is not doing the industry any favours by allowing (by way of issuing new licences annually) large scale planting of more gold kiwifruit orchards while knowing full well that there is not and will not in the future be the labour available to properly service the whole industry regardless of pay rates. Perhaps Zespri is banking on a future government re-opening the floodgates for international (Indian) "students" when the borders re-open.
I have deleted your comment Fluffybunny, but you are welcome to restate your views on migration in a less vitriolic manner.
Greg N.
Not much detail on this new visa. Is it a permanent residence visa? Their original visa extended for a period of time and for how long? The govt now calling it a "new class of residence visa" whereas before it was a work visa for a specific period.
This reporting not up to interest usual standards.
It is a permanent resident visa. I think one requirement is the applicant must have a valid work visa in the past 36 months.
Hi Nigelh. I didn't include much detail on the new visa in the article because that is old news. It was well covered in all major media when the scheme was announced in September. What is new is the number of people who have applied for it since applications opened at the beginning of December. Cheers.
Why do some people always associate immigrant workers with low pay etc.? It depends on the industry. I hired two new business analysts who originated from India during the past 24 months, trust me they were not cheap. I just lost one as someone else offered more.
The complaints relate to roles just like these ones, ones that can be held be people already here. The globalisation of our pay scales with the localisation of our increased services and infrastructure costs is the failure of the immigration policy.
"The globalisation of our pay scales with the localisation of our increased services and infrastructure costs" - what is your suggestion for fixing that?
Ensuring the skills we import through immigration are those that are expensive and difficult to produce locally through education. Pro-immigration people forget the real costs of immigration relating to overloads on critical infrastructure and a lack of of focus on educating our own people.
Education is vital, and knowledge is power, no doubt.
How will this offset emigration, which is a crucial contributor to immigration, especially in the short-to-mid run? Economies like Australia offers competent Kiwis more financially, and they tend to keep doing it. We are not only talking about data scientists or dentists but also builders and automobile technicians etc.
The costs of immigration include where immigrant workers with a work visa bringing in a wife/partner and children, whose education and health costs fall on the taxpayer while they are in NZ.
Does not make sense where, as an example, ethnic restaurants can import/sponsor "chefs" and pay them less than $30 per hour while the taxpayer subsidizes their health and education costs. There is no apparent net economic benefit to NZ for this and other such low pay industries which now appear to be structured to rely on (and cannot exist without) low pay and low skill immigration (independent liqour stores, nail salons, cafes, international students studying worthless courses, as other examples).
Lies don't become true, no matter how often you repeat them.
Importing "chefs" can only lead to a short term work visa (like fruit picking) with no ability to sponsor partners or children and no pathway to residency.
You should read the immigration requirements before posting uninformed myths.
Since Labour got in power and partially during the last National govt, the requirements are much stricter and minimum wage thresholds ensure there is a net benefit to NZ due to higher tax take but also higher qualified migrants which generally contribute to society in many ways.
That's odd. I have migrant friends who are a family with two school aged children, and one is a cafe worker while the other works in a supermarket. They've got residency. I guess they must've entered before the rules tightened up, along with many others.
I do recall the angst from the Restaurant Association (IIRC?) when it was proposed to put the salary threshold up to only $47,500, as if this was some high number for residency...
True. All parties in the Beehive are happy for this rort to continue indefinitely simply because in the absence of this low hanging fruit, they'd have to go through the trouble of actually planning and implementing structural improvements in our entire system (education & training, infrastructure, business policies, tax structure, etc.).
They cost less than native born citizens. We don’t have to pay to educate them. Plus they grow our economy and create jobs for locals. Everyone wins.
ones that can be held be people already here
Look, I totally agree that wages need to rise in many industries. But in some industries these people aren't already here in New Zealand. It's not simply a question of paying more. The resource just doesn't exist! We've had to setup offshore resources and have people working from Belgium, Spain, and others in order to keep things ticking along.
In my opinion we should be making businesses hire and train people in the skills shortage areas they require(eg apprenticeships just like in the trades) until we get to 0 unemployment, then we can start importing workers.
PS Yay to that business analyst leaving for a better return if you're unwilling to match or better their wage and conditions elsewhere. Did you then go on to advertise for workers locally or jump straight to India to import another worker? I wonder how many unemployed business analysts or people who could be upskilled into the role there are in New Zealand, have you looked into this?
For a moment there I thought we might get some house price flattening, phew, thanks Labour.
The new visa is for people who were already living and working in NZ so it won't have any effect on population numbers, just the visa holders' status.
Are they able to bring in relatives on the new VISA or is that subject to a separate rule? I know this has been overhauled in the last few years but not sure if it crosses over with the new VISA pathway.
No-one can bring in relatives because there are no MIQ slots.
It would affect there eligibility to buy a house as well as their ability to borrow money. Demand for buying houses from immigrants is a lagging variable. My guess is that it would take between 5 to 7 years for new immigrants to try to buy their first home.
Indeed, this is my point.
And I bet they will save for deposit and purchase a home for their family instead of complaining
Greg there are two phases, the first 15k may well already be here but for the other 135k applicants in phase 2 the criteria go back to the standard set, including already being here, but also being on the "scarce" skill list. I can't see this not including a significant number not in-country - we are missing 12000 nurses apparently...
Yet no corresponding increase in the infrastructure or housing that will be needed to support immigration? It's shameful the way New Zealand governments behave. I'm not anti-immigration but we must accelerate development to support these people.
Migration is going to become a competitive market.
Last week- Germany announced it wants 300 000 migrants- now and will make it easier for migrants to enter Germany.
Australia wants 200 000 migrants now and is prepared to waive visa fees to make it happen.
Canada wants 400 000 migrants and has eased the requirements to settle.
For most people wanting to move countries- lovely beaches, and countryside are nice to haves - but ease of migration and affordability is the real key. With high house prices and cost of living and a large number of migration hurdles to jump through - NZ is unlikely in the near future to attract to best and brightest migrants when other nations are offering lower costs of living and lower costs of migrating. Lets also be honest a number of young kiwis would find living in Canada and Germany an attractive option as well.
NZ is not too bad ;) You don't have to learn to speak German or have about 2 months of sunshine a year (and Canada's NOT cheap). If you are from developing countries, NZ's may be the next best thing to Aussie. I expect NZ to follow their suit to ease immigration rules.
Germany let in 1,000,000 "migrants" in over the last 5 years. Lets say only 160,000 are in the workforce. That really means over the last 5 odd years Germany needed/needs 300,000+160,000. if we average that over say 7 years that's about 65,000 a year for a population of 80m? Before covids NZ had been letting in say 40,000 a year in the previous 5 years for a population of 4.5-5m. Only difference I can think of is Germany does not have the exodus requiring replacements that NZ has.
Some where along the line there is need for a massive overhaul of the immigration system and in the interim there needs to be a long mark time.
Only let in after those who have left. Unfortunately the drawback to this is that replacements are probably required within six months of the departed and this is likely unachievable.
bargain of the century, if it only cost a few hundred dollars for potentially tens of thousand dollars worth of education and benefits for their family,no wonder they are queuing round the block. australia charge 10 times that.feels like another devaluation taking place.
Tens of thousands? That is a massive underestimate in my opinion, benefits, infrastructure, health, policing, education, roading, electricity etc... If it weren't more like $100,000+ for each immigrant (including elderly immigrants who will never, ever return productively to the country) I would be surprised.
Your comments really show you have no clue but you are very strongly opinionated.
Most migrants that come to NZ have to have a higher education which has been paid for long time ago in their home countries.
If they want to have a pathway for residency (Talent Work Visa) they have to earn around 80k in a 40 hours week, with many accredited employers offering a minimum of 104k in order to skip the labour market check.
From my experience most corporate roles will offer at leat 80-120k p.a. which means the individual pays PAYE in the range of 17,000 - 30,000 per annum. Some more successful people will certainly pay top tax rate and you would easily look at 40-60k income tax per annum.
On top of that goes GST for all the purchases made, supporting the local economy. If the migrant is a property owner, he will also pay rates to support the local govt and if he's a renter some landlord (mostly Kiwi) will make a nice rental income on top of his capital gains.
If that migrant dares to have a partner & children expenses will go up, again profiting NZ Inc. Most migrants on a 100k salary, will be able to save maybe 20-30k per annum to build a deposit and at some point spend it in NZ to buy their own house.
If you look at all the tax revenue, support of the NZ economy through expenditure (yes, creating jobs for Kiwis), intellectual property and work contribution (enabling Kiwi companies to make money!) you will notice there is a net benefit to the whole of NZ that goes well beyond the benefit they get from free education & health systems and in fact these people help to prop up pure bred Kiwis that never bothered with higher education or were less fortunate.
In all larger companies I have worked, migrants or citizens with migration background were in the majority and without them none of the big corporates would be able to do the business they do (think all telcos, insurance companies, healthcare, banks, airline, rail, transportation & logistics, manufacturing & processing, construction & building, retail) .
Without migrants NZ would still be a farm run by sheep.
These would all be great points, but a lot of these also apply to locals and no one is seriously suggesting we don't have any skilled migration at all.
Completely wrong. We have to pay educate native citizens. We don’t subject citizenship to conditions or an expiry (as hard a Labour is trying…). Immigrants are far more likely to be a net economic gain
So you are saying because we have had the worlds highest rate of immigration we should continue. ok.
Incidentally the data for 20/21 is (https://mbienz.shinyapps.io/migration_data_explorer/#)
- Clerical and Administrative Workers - 1752
- Community and Personal Service Workers - 3255
- Labourers - 6216
- Machinery Operators and Drivers - 2007
- Managers - 6270
- Professionals - 4542
- Sales Workers - 2379
- Technicians and Trades Workers - 12957
- Grand Total - 39378
The roles you were talking about fall into Professionals, there are three times as many trades workers and 50% more labourers that this segment.
I am the son of an immigrant and am not anti immigration but this balance is wrong, there is no investment in infrastructure to match this demand and our education sector is also not adequately funded.
Most of these roles could filled by apprenticeships in all those areas, to up-skill New Zealands unemployed. Australia have implemented an apprenticeship system that encompasses most of those areas which encourages with subsides so that employers take on low skilled and the unemployed into roles. I have worked in this system and as with any government subsidised system there is some minimal rorting of the system by some unscrupulous employers, but on the whole the system works extremely well, with trainee employees gaining on the job training while studying, gaining a wage, a qualification and a way up. With a built in a system in which older unemployed where given subsidy preference, in low manual labour work, you would quickly see even the older generations back out of subsistence poverty utilising the wealth of knowledge and skills they have to share.
How about copying our neighbour across the Tasman in the way we grant "Permanent' Residence? Its only permanent in blocks of 5-years. Renewable upon expiry subject to holder having being resident in the aggregate X years of the preceding 5 years. This will put a stop to people getting their PR and in the next instant flying off overseas for greener pastures. Return in retirement. Under the current PR in NZ, we will forever be a transit point for PR seekers. The shortage of workers will be perennial. How many of the PR's dished out in the past are still resident here?
Indeed, it is of course far to much to expect any analysis from our government but this has been a clear behaviour for some time.
So predictable, like I said months ago we will have 2-3 years worth on immigration here in 1 year as soon as the borders open again. The government just takes the easy option every time.
I agree. Probably the only card left for Jacinda to play to fight inflation AND save the property market from collapsing - open up immigration once more. Even hinting around immigration may keep the market afloat with anticipation for a while.
And National will do the same as well as opening up NZ to foreign buyers.
Young Kiwis will be sacrificed to protect their own wealth, by these two major parties. Then they'll make the young folk pay the taxes out of their wages, so they don't have to out of their asset speculation.
Good! That means people living and working here can put down roots and get some security.
We need more working people and investors in this country.
Failing to do so and we will become a forsaken island down right next to Antarctica- not worthy of mentioning in any maps other than an accidental smudge of ink on the paper.
Investors in productive business, not asset speculators. We need to reward hard productive work not sitting around on our ass-ets.
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