Accredited Employer status with New Zealand Immigration to become compulsory.
Introduction
The government is making significant changes to immigration to control the quality of new migrants entering New Zealand to work and to ensure that more Kiwis are employed in preference to migrants.
If you have been recruiting new staff in New Zealand with specific skills over the last 5 years you will know that it is often difficult to find Kiwis with the skills required. Consequently, many companies have elected to support new migrants by providing job offers enabling them to achieve a work visa and from there possibly a Residence visa.
For employers there has been an optional accreditation pathway with Immigration NZ which once achieved has enabled the employer to offer a position for 2 years with a minimum salary of $55k and proof that suitable local advertising has occurred. If these basic conditions are met a work visa is granted more quickly solving the need for skills.
Employer Accreditation
Changes…
From 2021 Employer accreditation with Immigration NZ will become essential for any company wishing to employ migrants.
When this occurs, it will also become more difficult to meet the accreditation as the government ideally wants you to employ New Zealanders.
The minimum salary requirement has already increased from $55,000k to $79,560k
So, what can you do…?
Although we would all like to employ more Kiwis, the reality is however that if you have been recruiting in New Zealand over the past 5 years you will know that for many roles there are not the skills available in New Zealand. This shortage is likely to continue until we can develop the skills in NZ.
If you have migrants working for you now and believe you will need to keep them or will likely need more in the future, we believe there are 3 real benefits to becoming accredited now.
- You will beat the rush and the processing delays that are bound to occur once a defined accreditation timeline is announced.
- From 2021 the criteria to achieve accreditation will become more rigorous.
- You will avoid having to use other visa types which are based on tighter criteria and longer processing times and therefore present higher risk of failure.
We are happy to discuss this further with you. Please contact your Recruitment Consultant or John Lawson, john@lawsonwilliams.co.nz.