Under the government’s new immigration rules the classification of temporary high and low skilled workers and their residency eligibility will be determined by income, regardless of their industry position.
Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse announced last week that temporary migrants would need to earn at least $48,859 a year to qualify for the Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) visa. Those earning $73,299+ will automatically be classed as “high-skilled”, collecting points towards permanent residency.
Those temporary migrants earning less than a median income of $48,859 will be classified as low-skilled. These so-called “essential skills” visa holders will only be able to stay for three years and be required to leave for a year before getting another three-year visa. The newly classified low-skilled migrants will not gain points towards permanent residency.
“It’s important that our immigration settings are attracting the right people, with the right skills, to help fill genuine skill shortages and contribute to our growing economy,” Woodhouse says.
The news rules will also mean that partners and children of temporary migrants will not be automatically eligible and will instead have to meet their own individual requirements. Furthermore, seasonal workers will be issued a season-long visa, rather than the 12-month visa currently issued.
Separately, 4,000 temporary migrants in the South Island could receive a special pathway to residency if they stay in the same industry and region over the next two years.
Business NZ Chief Executive Kirk Hope supported the adjustments, which he said will “reduce the potential for residence applications to be dominated by lower-skilled workers.”
Opposition parties have also blamed immigration for new pressures on transport infrastructure and social services. In the year preceding February, the country’s net migration rose to a record 71,333 with 57,156 arriving in Auckland.
The king of immigration politics, NZ First Leader Winston Peters, says the changes are a dog whistle and a con. The government “are fiddling with the issue while the plain fact is foreign workers will still be able to come here when employers claim they can’t get Kiwis,” Peters says.
Peters adds, “The underbelly of National’s borderless free-for-all to get money from foreign students and to prop up industries with cheap labour is being exposed repeatedly.”
Labour leader Andrew Little says the government’s proposals “don’t address the huge numbers of people coming here to do low level qualifications or low skill work, then using those visas as a stepping-stone to residency,” Little says, while noting that Labour supports high-skilled immigration where and when it’s needed.
While the policy may provide a perception that the government is tackling immigration it is still unclear how the number of temporary migrants will be affected. The government estimates there are only about 1,700 low-skilled workers who have held a temporary visa for longer than the new three-year limit.
Minister of Immigration Michael Woodhouse says National aim to have the new policies introduced later in the year. Public consultation on the changes closes on 21 May.