‘Big change’ to visas will buy time

Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi says visa changes he announced yesterday are designed to give some certainty to employers and their staff.

Queenstown Lakes Mayor Jim Boult said the "very big change" announced to essential skills visas — increasing them from 12 to 24 months for those paid under the median wage — would help settle people and buy employers and their staff some time.

Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi
Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi
The change to the duration of the essential skills visas would potentially affect about 18,000 people, while 58,0000 people in New Zealand on those visas would also benefit from a streamlined application process.

Mr Faafoi said by removing the requirement for applicants to provide medical certificates and police checks to Immigration New Zealand, if that information had already been supplied, applicants "just have to make a declaration that nothing has changed in any significant way there".

"It should make it extremely easy in terms of the process.

"A lot of businesses, a lot of sectors, are concerned that if they don’t have long-term certainty about their visa status that they may not stay in New Zealand, so this gives them that.

"As this Covid-19 pandemic drags on, I think making sure that we do give some of these sectors some certainty for their workforce is extremely important.

"We’re still making sure that if people are extending visas, or applying to extend visas for new jobs or the likes of promotions, there will be what we call a labour market test ... but again, it’s about making sure we can give some more certainty to those who are here on essential skills visas for the next two or three years."

Mr Faafoi said it had taken this long for the visa changes to be confirmed because the Government wanted to balance the tension between keeping migrant workers in New Zealand and giving New Zealanders employment opportunities.

The Government was "always looking" at immigration settings, including managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) spaces and the need to bring in critical workers from overseas to help the economy "keep ticking over".

However, the border was still closed.

"Over the past 18 months we’ve been able to allow about 17,000 workers into the country through MIQ ... Obviously that’s not as many as some sectors would like."

Mr Boult said he hoped to see more New Zealanders would take jobs in the district, yesterday’s announcement would act as a bridge for businesses and migrant workers in the short to medium term.

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