OPINION: The skilled migrant residence programme is badly broken and Government seems powerless to fix it.
Tens of thousands of people, working in New Zealand in highly skilled jobs, await processing of their residence visas, having filed their applications before March 2020.
Many thousands more await selection from the skilled migrant “pool”.
Selection and invitations ceased temporarily in March 2020. The pool continues to attract expressions of interest (EIO) as Government never stopped allowing them to be filed
The Government surely must be wrestling with what to do with all those EOIs.
The number currently sits around 10,000, up from 7000 in March 2020. The rate of increase is slowing given it's almost impossible to get a job without being in New Zealand and a job is needed to score enough points. Still that pool contains somewhere between 21,000 and 23,000 people. The 18-month target of resident visas for all skilled migrants is roughly 25,000.
In addition, by years' end, another 6000 to10,000 people will be eligible to apply for residence from work and most will
That’s on top of the tens of thousands sitting in the two-year processing backlog who filed their residence applications before March 2020 and whose files are gathering dust.
The Government then is staring down the barrel of three years for people sitting in the pool to be processed and to secure their visas even if they were all selected today.
It isn’t obvious what the Government’s plan is – if it has one. Government advised it would review EOI selections in late March 2021. That date came and went accompanied by a deafening silence.
Government could stop allowing anyone to file an EOI but the market will interpret that as the country closing the door to skilled migrants. Rightly or wrongly, there’s already a growing perception among migrant groups that they are not welcome in New Zealand any longer.
Given how well the economy has weathered the Covid-19 storm, skills shortages continue to worsen. Employers are screaming for talent. Hospitals need nurses. Infrastructure projects need engineers. Schools need teachers. Software companies need programmers. Accounting firms need auditors.
Proof the Government seemingly has no plan was laid bare when only three weeks after announcing a so-called "immigration reset", the one concrete detail being an intention to make it harder for those at the lower skilled end of the spectrum to secure work visas, the Government’s first action following that announcement was to offer a six-month blanket extension to all those here on holiday working visas and seasonal work visas – these are the very waiters, housekeepers, fruit pickers and packers the Government announced it didn’t want any more.
The Government has painted itself into a political corner with its messaging. With such tight restrictions on the border virtually all of those in that skilled migrant pool are already in New Zealand, working and contributing their skills to the economy.
Migrants have hit back at the so-called immigration "reset" saying it uses them as a 'scapegoat' for problems with housing, infrastructure and worker welfare.
As I see it the government has few options:
- Honour the process, select all of those on 160 points and drip-feed their invitations to apply for residency across perhaps, one year. Consider making it explicitly clear they are putting the pass mark up temporarily thereafter so all those currently in the pool are selected but to discourage applications for a while. It would be the honourable thing to do.
- Push the pass mark up to 180, which would mean many but not all of those in the pool will be selected. It would send a signal to the market that the standard is higher, fewer people would file EOIs but in time that should allow the pass mark to fall back to some sort of equilibrium. Pass marks are designed to react to demand, so it can go up or down.
- Set the pass mark high enough so Government could drain the pool But that nuclear option is unthinkable. Those in the pool have no legal nor appeal rights if their EOI is not selected so it is a technical possibility. All are here filling jobs that cannot be filled locally. Would any Government act in such an underhand manner?
Increasingly migrants are feeling New Zealand is closing its doors. That might suit the government but behind closed doors the politicians must recognise we need every single one of these highly skilled people given they are already here.
As a people, we can never forget these EOIs represent mums, dads and children - people this Government invited to be part of its programme. Cutting any of them loose would be reprehensible and irreparably damage the country’s international reputation as a migrant destination.
Whatever the motivation for not resuming selections from the pool Government has a decision to make and every week it does nothing, the problem only gets worse.
Source: Stuff, Iain MacLeod is managing director of immigration adviser, Immagine Immigration., he is former vice-chairman and director of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment and the New Zealand Immigration institute.
