Work Visa Updates

The immigration grapevine has probably grown another few inches this week as the Government has announced further changes to Work Visa policy - these ones aimed squarely at partners and children looking to join Work Visa holders in NZ, where those Work Visa holders are working in lower skilled roles. The short explanation is that the Government has removed that Visa option for those partners and children (with some exceptions), the longer answer is of course why.

While no one likes shock and awe policy, or policy released without any prior warning, you can easily see why this recent change was announced in this way. Firstly there is no real shock or awe in these changes, because it is once again going back to policy that we used to have in place. Under previous Work Visa categories, those at a particular skill or salary level were restricted in their ability to bring in family members. This change brings that back in to focus, which aligns nicely with the current Governments very clear signaling that lower skilled migration is being slowly but surely culled.

It would be fair to say that for many advisers in the industry, myself included, we expected something along these lines to be rolled out, we just weren’t sure as to when and perhaps this is a bit sooner than anticipated.

What did surprise me a little, was the fact that the Government has implemented this and included people who are already here on an AEWV, who might not yet have had a chance to apply for their partners or children (but were planning to do just that). To me that seems a little unfair, but of course that does explain the rushed announcement - meaning no one had a chance to quickly apply for their family members before the rules were introduced.

We also noticed yesterday that the Government didn’t quite get their messaging right. One announcement suggested that this applied to any partners and children who had not yet applied before 26 June, yet the rules referred to an exemption for those who had applications in place on 26 June - meaning of course that a lot of people rushed to apply yesterday so that there applications were in process on that date. It will be interesting to see what they do with anyone who filed yesterday, taking a punt that they might still be approved (maybe they will).

However, let’s jump in and look at the changes in greater detail, the potential affects on aspiring applicant, who this change doesn’t have any impact on and what this could mean for other visa categories in the future.

The Details

As a bit of a (good) spoiler alert, the changes announced this week, have absolutely no impact on those who are in a skilled occupation, looking to make the move. So if you are a teacher, engineer, ICT professional, accountant or a whole host of other occupations that require a reasonable degree of skill, chances are, there is nothing here to see.

These changes do however impact on those at the lower skill level, for example labourers, clerical and administrative staff and so forth. Of course working out where you fit on the skill ladder for our visa system is part of the challenge, but to help understand these changes, we are referring to definitions contained in the Australia, New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO). ANZSCO defines roles by skill level, from one (highly skilled) to five (low skilled). This is based on the experience or qualifications required to do the job, as well as the tasks involved.

Pathways to Residence

These changes have made it clear, that unless you have a pathway to Residence, the ability to bring your family here is limited.

Skill Level 4 and 5 Roles

The announced changes mean that essentially if you are in a skill level four, or skill level five role in New Zealand and on an Accredited Employer Work Visa, your partner will no longer be able to secure a Work Visa based on your AEWV and your children will no longer be able to secure dependent Student Visas. Your partner and children may be able to qualify in their own right for Work Visas or full-fee paying Student Visas, or come over as visitors only. There are of course some exemptions for people in specific level four or five roles or earning a specific salary here, which we will explore a bit further on in this article.

This change of course means that there will be a number of potential applicants who may rethink their plans to come over, if they are unable to bring their family with them and that in turn achieves one of the Government’s aims which is to reduce the overall numbers of migrants coming in at these skill levels.

Skill Level 1, 2 and 3 Roles

For AEWV holders in NZ, working here in skill level one, two or three roles, there is no change to their process at all and partners and children remain as eligible to secure Work and Dependent Student Visas as they were last week. You can pretty quickly see that the focus of this Government is on making those lower skilled level roles, less desirable for migrants, by restricting who (in the family) can come in to the country.

The intended consequence of all of this, hopefully being to encourage employers here to pick up locals - of course that is assuming that you can change generations of embedded welfare assistance and get those locals off the couch and in to the job market. I would suggest that the Government might be relying on the wrong tools to solve that particular issue.

However for most skilled migrants, today’s changes mean nothing at all and the impacts here will be felt in a very different part of our migrant and labour markets.

The Exemptions

Like all of these policies there are always exemptions or “carve outs” if you work in the public sector. In this case the following exemptions do apply and also the following people wont be affected:

• AEWV holders working in skill level four or five roles that are on the Green List and where the AEWV holder meets the requirements - they can still bring in their partner and children.

• AEWV holders earning 1.5 times the median under the SMC category ($31.61 per hour) can still bring in partners and children.

• Partners and children who have already applied and are waiting for their visas to be processed.

• Partners and children already in NZ on those visas (they get to keep them).

• AEWV holders working towards Residence under a sector agreement can also bring their partners and children.

There aren’t many occupations that fall at level four or five and sit on the Green List, but there are a few and for those lucky folks, they get to have the family here all together, the rest unfortunately lose out.

Why Change?

When the Government rolled out the AEWV changes in April, to introduce a minimum skills threshold, English testing and reduced time on visas for lower skilled applicants, the signals were very clear - we are trying to bring those numbers (of low skilled applicants) down and in a hurry. This was in part to address issues of exploitation but also in response to a changing economy, which we are seeing more of now.

Focus on Skills

These changes very clearly signal the Governments intention to reduce the number of lower skilled workers able to come in to NZ and the duration they can be here for.

The numbers of low-skilled (four and five roles) that were allowed to enter New Zealand under the less than watchful eye of the previous Government was spectacular - more than we have seen in recent history.

In many cases we needed them, in plenty of other cases those applicants were either being ferried in by less than genuine employers, looking to make some easy money or people trying to dodge the system and get here by any means possible. The main issue however was that those numbers were out of control and not sustainable.

To clean up the mess, the current Government has tightened the reigns on who can get in based on these skill levels and now by adding this change (to remove the options for partners), the idea will be to reduce those numbers even further. After all, if you can’t bring your wife and children you wouldn’t come right?

Well, not necessarily…

There are plenty of applicants for whom this change might not make much difference, even if they are working in the lower skill brackets. In fact many migrants from the Philippines (as just one example), often spend time separated, in order for one person to be able to work and earn a living with the rest of the family back home. The same applies to many families from countries where even splitting up the family is preferable to everyone having to stay put.

This change will absolutely have an impact on the overall number and could potentially deal a significant blow to those looking to dodge the system, but it wont suddenly get all our unemployed local people in to jobs. Politically it is the right signal to be sending to voters as it shows that the Government is looking after job opportunities for those same voters (even if many of them wont take up the jobs on offer). It also means that the Government is not telling the business community directly that they cant have the people they might desperately need (so they may not lose votes there) but obviously it isn’t making life easier for them.

My view is that there are better, more upfront ways to deal with this issue and whilst the intent of this change isn’t necessarily wrong, it seems like a change trying to solve problems that really need a very different set of tools.

One thing that does bother me about all of this though is that there are plenty of Work Visa holders who came here to take up lower skilled roles, at the request of employers, approved by INZ, who up until this week had every expectation of being able to bring their family here with them. They packed up, came across and started working but may not have had the time or circumstance to get their family applications lodged. For them this sudden change of policy is a bit of a low-blow and even though it might be small number of people, it would have been more reasonable for the exemption to also apply to them. One option could have been to apply the exemption to those in skill level four or five roles who had been here already for three months or more (and thus were more settled in those jobs).

Change is Inevitable

Changes are always unsettling, particularly in the context of an international move where complex visa rules are involved, but for those of you considering the move, who are skilled and employable, the theme of all of these recent announcements is that they are not aimed at you.

These changes, along with those we saw back in April are very squarely being leveled at the lower skilled group and in a means to slow down numbers, along with some good political optics thrown in along the way.

For the skilled migrant, this reduction in lower-skilled applicants will potentially mean faster processing times as the overall numbers fall away and that is always a good thing. However what remains to be seen is how long this change might stick for. We have seen changes like these before and ultimately when employers need staff and the lobbying machines kick in to gear, Governments tend to bow down to the pressure.

For now, we are off to enjoy a long weekend, with Friday here being a public holiday for Matariki, which is the Māori name for the cluster of stars also known as the Pleiades. It rises in midwinter and for many Māori, it heralds the start of a new year.

Until next week!