New Zealand will tighten its visa rules for some migrants as the coalition government moves to overhaul the immigration system it says has led to “unsustainable” levels of migration.
Last year, annual net migration to New Zealand hit a near record high of more than 173,000 non-New Zealand citizens in the year to December, Stats NZ reported.
Immigration minister Erica Stanford announced on Sunday changes to the accredited employer worker visa (AEWV), the main temporary work visa, which was introduced in mid-2022 to help fill workforce shortages after the pandemic.
The government’s changes to the scheme would include introducing English-language requirements for low-skilled jobs and setting a minimum skills and work experience threshold for most employer work visas. The maximum continuous stay for most low-skilled roles will also be reduced to three years from five years.
The changes would be immediate, she said.
“The government is focused on attracting and retaining the highly skilled migrants such as secondary teachers, where there is a skill shortage,” Stanford said in a statement. “At the same time we need to ensure that New Zealanders are put to the front of the line for jobs where there are no skills shortages.”
New Zealand, which has a population of about 5.1 million, has seen a rapid growth in migrant numbers since the end of the pandemic, raising concerns last year that it was fanning inflation. A Reserve Bank-commissioned report released last month into the possible links between migration levels and inflation was inconclusive.
Stanford said the changes would also reduce the vulnerability of migrants to exploitation.
In February, the Public Service Commission released its review of the AEWV scheme, which former immigration minister Andrew Little ordered after complaints of exploitation. The commission found that a small number of “unscrupulous employers” targeted the scheme and took payments from people wanting to move to New Zealand.
“By having an English-language requirement migrants will be better able to understand their rights or raise concerns about an employer early,” Stanford said.
The government had scrapped plans to add 11 new roles to the Green List – a list of highly skilled roles that New Zealand is struggling to fill – including welders, and fitters and turners.
Neighbouring Australia, which has also seen a big increase in migration, has said it would halve its migrant intake over the next two years.
