A farm lobby says it has retained dairy farmers' access to a stream of migrant dairy workers, despite concerns in the rest of the economy about rising unemployment.
Federated Farmers said today it had kept dairy farm workers on the Government's Immediate Skill Shortage List of 87 occupations.
Immigration New Zealand last week cut 44 job-types that had previously been on the skills-shortage list, in the latest twice-yearly Labour Department review.
Affected trades included bakers, sheep farm workers and construction sector occupations, such as bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers and scaffolders. Employers wanting to bring in a migrant worker will have to show there are no suitable New Zealanders available to do those jobs in that area.
Federated Farmers employment spokesman Frank Brenmuhl said it had successfully lobbied Immigration New Zealand after it moved to take skilled dairy workers off the list. "We still have a major skill shortage," he said.
The dairy industry needed more than 4000 new workers annually to cover growth, retirements and people leaving the sector, as the average age of dairy farmers increased and their farms grew in size.
Mr Brenmuhl said not enough young New Zealanders entered dairying and, if the special treatment of workers able to fill jobs as assistant herd manager and assistant farm manager had been cancelled, it could have compromised exports.
New Zealand dairy farmers employed about 1300 migrant workers from countries as diverse as the Philippines, Chile and South Africa, and some had built up valuable experience working in this country for several years.
"Sending them home would have been a complete waste of time, effort and money," he said.
Immigration New Zealand last week estimated it had issued 1644 work visas and permits over the past year to individuals to work on beef and dairy farms, compared with 992 in the previous year.