ANZSCO - Time For A Change?
On the 15th of July, Statistics New Zealand released an online call for suggestions on the fate of the ANZSCO system, which is a system that is heavily embedded in our visa process. ANZSCO (a better explanation follows) is the statistic reference Immigration New Zealand uses to determine whether your job is skilled and what level that skill sits at. It is a cross-border list of occupations, used by Australia and New Zealand for a variety of things, but features heavily in how visas are processed for those coming in under our skilled categories.
Statistics New Zealand’s introduction to this change included the following comment “The current Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) is outdated, and no longer meets the needs of either country”. Apart from being a fairly damning critique of the system, it is absolutely spot on. ANZSCO was never really designed to be used in the visa process, but was a conveniently available tool to adopt.
While Stats NZ has not suggested that this will mean a change to immigration instructions specifically, if ANZSCO does change or is removed entirely, then obviously INZ will need to follow suit. So we have a look at what ANZSCO is, how it works and what it might be replaced with in time.
What is ANZSCO?
ANZSCO or the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations in the long-form is essentially a statistical representation of occupations in the Australian and New Zealand labour markets. Introduced in 2006, the idea was to formulate a way of understanding what everyone did all day long and to be able to the classify that activity by skill level. This gave the number-crunchers the tools to create more useful data for many other aspects of the economy. Usually gathered as part of a census, ANZSCO meant that you could work out how many people were doing particular jobs at any given time and then look at trends in the labour market for vital economic clues.
INZ adopted the tool as a very convenient way of determining the level of skill involved with occupations and then used that process to sift through who should and should not get a visa or in some cases which visa they might get.
Sifting the Statistics
Trying to sort through the myriad of occupation codes in ANZSCO is a frustrating but also very important exercise. Getting it wrong can be catastrophic.
The trouble with tools like this, is that they either need to be constantly updated or supplemented with additional data to ensure they remain accurate and relevant. Given the rapidly changing nature of our labour markets and the work we do, ANZSCO has become out of date and in fact was pretty much in that state, not long after it was rolled out. With technology creating new jobs every five minutes, ANZSCO has failed to keep up to speed with the sheer volumes of occupations available as well as how those have changed over time. In the past, there were highly skilled applicants, who could not find themselves in ANZSCO and who effectively were declined, because the “computer says no”.
ANZSCO uses a series of “groups” to try and bunch different occupations together, for example engineers. Within those groups there will be a list of common tasks for all of the occupations in the group, and then a specific definition for the unique role. Those common tasks created a problem, because INZ would try and match that list to the clients job description and where it wasn’t close enough, then they would potentially decline. However engineers working in different sectors will have an endless supply of variations to their jobs, that dont always line up to what the stats might suggest. For most highly skilled roles, it was never too big an issue, but for those at a lower skill level, it became a ‘margin-call’ as to whether someone was skilled or not.
INZ tried to fix this, by introducing a salary level, that if reached, would deem any job skilled, regardless of ANZSCO - good idea, but a pretty blunt instrument and not without its issues. The newer approach by INZ to relying more on salary has meant less debates over whether someone ticks all the boxes in ANZSCO, but there are now issues surfacing in how ANZSCO is applied for a Work Visa, then separately for Residence. Just because your Work Visa was approved because INZ believed you were highly skilled, doesn’t mean Residence will be, because that ANZSCO assessment happens separately for each application.
So when Stats NZ calls this out for being outdated and not fit for purpose, they are spot on. The update process for ANZSCO is also clunky and slow…in fact INZ uses the current 1.3 version for some policies and the old 1.2 version for others, only because transitioning between the two is a logistical nightmare for policy makers.
Time For A Change?
ANZSCO, as a starting point, was useful, because it was a quick and easy way to apply a classification process for skill levels to the visa system, however the challenges that a modern labour market brings, in terms of change and evolution, mean that the ANZSCO system has worn out its welcome. We are now almost two decades from when it was first rolled out and while the world has changed dramatically in terms of what we do and how…ANZSCO has only had a few minor tweaks.
Out With The Old
Statistics New Zealand readily admits that ANZSCO is outdated and no longer meets the needs of either New Zealand or Australia…
The challenge for policy-makers is that even if you admit that the current state of ANZSCO is a bit long in the tooth, what do you replace it with?
Well Stats NZ is exploring a rather radical option of creating a new occupation classification system that is unique to New Zealand but aligned to Australia. This would then remove the cross-border issues where what we do here, isn’t always the same as our friends across the pond. Having a uniquely NZ approach, would potentially allow for more flexibility and give a better indication of how roles compare in the NZ context. We already have separate occupation and career databases in NZ, that our new version of ANZSCO could connect to, and that would mean for faster more relevant updates. Sounds like a good idea.
However, that wont solve every problem because there are jobs that exist, that aren’t easily squared away against any sort of finite list. There are also jobs that merge between skill sets, meaning they sit over two or more codes, but not specifically against just one. That has always posed as a challenge for INZ officers, trying to figure out if you do all the tasks, some of the tasks or enough of the tasks to consider you skilled.
There is also a separate argument that just because your are on the right rung of the skill ladder based on a list of occupations, doesn’t necessarily mean your are in demand or conversely you might be in a lower skilled role, that we desperately need. There is no easy answer here, but I am pleased that at least there is a clear acknowledgement that the current system is tired and needs replacing.
Personally I like the idea of a more NZ-centric approach to assessing skills and one that at least gets more than one update every few years. However whatever changes are made, it seems likely that there will be some sort of list involved.
Where You Fit In
For now, the current (depending on which visa you apply for) version of ANZSCO is the occupational minefield you or your employer needs to wade through, as part of the process and making sure you get this right is really important. We have seen plenty of cases where an employer has selected an ANZSCO code that they think is right, and that INZ has largely ignored for the Work Visa process, that then means the applicant has been classed at a lower skill level.
When that same applicants looks to apply for Residence, using a different code, then INZ naturally starts to asks questions as to why there is a variation, even though that code might be a perfect fit. Employers often pick what they think is right, versus what INZ might see as being the best match.
By establishing where you sit within ANZSCO, at the very start, you will save yourself a lot of potential headaches later on. As part of our initial assessment, we look closely at your background, skills and education to try and map out the best fit within ANZSCO - giving you an initial starting point to work from - useful not only for the visa process but also when you are engaging with NZ employers.
Until next week!
