It will now be tougher for would-be migrants to gain residency under the skilled migrant and family sponsored categories.
Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse today announced that there would be fewer residence approvals planned for the next two years to 85,000-95,000, down from 90,000-100,000.
The number of points required for residence will also be raised from 140 to 160 points under the Skilled Migrant Category and the number of places for the capped family categories would be reduced to 2000 per year from 5500.
A record number of 69,000 people settled in New Zealand in the year to July.
The changes were made following a review of the Government's New Zealand Residence Programme (NZRP).
The programme sets a planning range for the total number of people approved residence over a multi-year period, and determines the proportion of residence places allocated to the different residence streams.
"Increasing the points required to gain residence from 140 to 160 will moderate the growth in applications in the Skilled Migrant Category and enable us to lower the overall number of migrants gaining residence," Mr Woodhouse said.
"Changes to the Family Category, including temporarily closing the Parent Category to new applications, will also reduce the total number of migrants being granted residence."
About half of those approved under the residence programme came through the skilled migrant category.
"Raising the points will also prioritise access for higher-skilled SMC migrants, ensuring we strike the right balance between attracting skilled workers that allow companies to grow and managing demand in a period of strong growth," Mr Woodhouse added.
The changes include:
• Changing the planning range for residence approvals for the next two years to 85,000-95,000 (down from 90,000-100,000)
• Raising the number of points required for residence from 140 to 160 points under the Skilled Migrant Category
• Reducing the number of places for the capped family categories to 2000 per year (down from 5500)
