17/07/19 - The heartbreak behind the immigration backlog

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The government is sticking to its election promise of turning down the tap on immigration.

Prior to the last election, Labour indicated it would reduce immigration numbers by 20,000 to 30,000, while New Zealand First pledged to take it right down to 10,000 from 70,000.

New figures show the government has slashed resident visa numbers to the lowest seen in the last two decades.

In contrast, temporary work visas are at their highest point ever.

RNZ immigration reporter, Gill Bonnett, says net migration figures are still high.

“If you look at work visas, theyʼre still very buoyant, and a lot of people still want to come into the country as tourists and as students.”

Bonnett says the sharp dive in residence numbers started with changes made by the previous National government.

But she says the decrease in resident numbers in the last year is largely because of delays in processing.

“Itʼs not clear whether that is part of the way theyʼre bringing the numbers down because they have a target to reach in terms of a lower number of residents.”

Bonnett says an anti-immigration sentiment started brewing about 2015 and 2016 when immigrants were blamed for high house prices and pressures on infrastructure.

“People became very concerned with immigration when in fact some of the issues were not immigration-related at all.

“I think that the National government, as it was then, decided to take a step back ... to try and ease off on the temporary work visa numbers.

“To try and make it harder for people to become residents, they increased the number of points that skilled immigrants had to get in order to become residents here.”

In the lead-up to the election, New Zealand First was also very vocal about how immigration numbers needed to drop.

Labour rhetoric echoed that sentiment, with talk of turning the tap down.

Bonnett says the net migration numbers - the numbers of people arriving in New Zealand minus those leaving - are holding steady.

“Students are still trying to come into the country and international education is still a very big business.”

But a restructure at Immigration New Zealand, which coincided with visa volume rises, has thrown a spanner in the works.

In an attempt to streamline the process and cut costs, Immigration New Zealand wanted to reduce the number of global visa processing centres from 25 to 10.

Bonnett says, “They didnʼt forecast visa volumes to increase so they laid people off.”

New people have been hired and trained in visa processing in Mumbai and Henderson, leading to significant delays and costs to businesses.

“[International] students couldnʼt start courses, costing the international education sector $33 million within three to four months.”

Additionally, visitors couldnʼt make their trips in time and some operators had to cancel tours.

Bonnett says a lot of temporary visa applications are time sensitive, such as holidays, course starts and recruiting foreign workers.

About 26,000 applications for residence are waiting to be processed, up by 10,000 on this time last year.

In partnership visas, where one person is working or a student and their partner wants to join them, sometimes with children, there have also been long delays.

“Itʼs been really tough on some of those the families where one part of the family is here and the other somewhere else”.

(Source: RNZ, Gill Bonnett))

17/07/19 - Residency applications outstrip lowered targets

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Immigration

Despite policy promises designed to radically slash migration, numbers remain high and applications for residency continue to rise. Laura Walters reports

The high volume of incoming residency applications is outstripping the Governmentʼs lowered targets, as part of its revised residency programme.

A high-priority briefing paper to the immigration minister shows thousands more people are applying for residency than the number the Government has agreed to accommodate in its new targets.

The new targets are an attempt to turn down the tap, and refocus the objectives of the residence programme as New Zealand continues to grapple with the direction of its immigration plan and tension between skills shortages and demands on already stretched infrastructure.

This continuous stream of people knocking at New Zealandʼs door comes despite a coalition government of two parties that campaigned on significantly cutting migration.

For New Zealand First, it was a promise to slash annual net migration to just 10,000, from a recent (revised) high of almost 64,000 in 2016. Labour, meanwhile, estimated its planned changes to immigration settings would reduce immigration by up to 30,000.

Since coming into power, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway has pivoted away from talk about drastic migration cuts, towards quality of skills and stamping out exploitation.

And while the Government has made some changes to migration settings, so far policy changes have been largely tinkering at the edges, and have not led to any significant drop-off in migration.

Annual net migration has remained consistently high since 2014. In April, it was 55,800.

The slight easing over the past couple of years is in line with official forecasts, which predict net migration to drop to 57,000 in the September 2020 year, and is attributed to a continuation of the downward trend in net non-citizen arrivals, as well as an increase in net New Zealand citizen departures.

Resident applications outstrip Cabinet targets

Briefing documents obtained by Newsroom under the Official Information Act show the number of people looking to become New Zealand residents is not reducing in line with the Governmentʼs plans.

In a May briefing to Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway, officials warned the volume of incoming applications was greater than the number of people which may be approved under the Governmentʼs new 18-month New Zealand Residency Programme planning range.

The range, which was set by this government for the first time in February, allows for 50,000 to 60,000 people to gain residency between July 2018 and December 2019.

The former National government set the planning range at 85,000 to 95,000 in 2016 for the two years to July 2018. Prior to that, the range had been set at 90,000 to 100,000.

When the Government revised the targets, it also changed the visa ratios to 51 percent skilled workers, 38 percent family, and 11 percent humanitarian. (From 60 percent skilled workers, 33 percent family, and 7 percent humanitarian.)

Between July 2018 and April 2019, immigration New Zealand received residence applications for 50,358 people. However, the maximum number of people that could be approved under the residence programme targets for the period was 33,333.

In recent years, between 80 percent and 95 percent of those applications were made by people already in New Zealand on other forms of visas.

The tightening of the skilled migrant category in 2016 and 2017 saw a downturn in the number of incoming skilled migrant applications – from 10,521 applications in the five months to September 2016, down to 5779 in the five months to December 2018.

Despite the decrease in skilled migrant application volumes, the number of people applying for residence is still tracking higher than the maximum number of approvals agreed by Cabinet, officials said.

The changes to the skilled migrant category had also seen a change in the top three occupations.

Chef (6.3 percent), retail manager (4.7 percent) and cafe or restaurant manager (4.1 percent) were the top three approved occupations prior to the changes.

Now those occupations are registered aged care nurse (10 percent), early childhood teacher (3 percent) and software engineer (2.5 percent).

Further processing delays

Immigration New Zealand officials said while the number of incoming applications were outstripping the planning ranges, the department expected it would likely only approve residency applications for 50,000 to 55,000 people by the end of the year.

“However, this means there will likely be an increase in residence applications on hand, and also decision timeliness.”

Immigration New Zealand has been struggling with processing delays, across a number of visa categories, in recent months.

Student visa delays have been firmly in the spotlight, with education providers expressing concern about potential losses in the millions, and Education New Zealand warning the Government about potential reputational damages.

The ministerʼs briefing documents show the delay issues are more widespread.

Long-term planning over short-term numbers

In a written statement, Lees-Galloway said the Government was more focused on longer-term labour market planning than short-term numbers.

“The work we are doing is about filling genuine skills shortages in the short term, with a longer-term plan to join up our businesses, regions, and education system to fill skills shortages with New Zealand workers.”

When asked why the number of residency applications remained so high, despite Labour and New Zealand Firstʼs promises to tighten immigration, he said: “New Zealandʼs economy is strong and we are a desirable place to live. These factors continue to make New Zealand an attractive destination for potential immigrants.”

Lees-Galloway reiterated that,while residence applications were “on the high side”, total applications approved would remain within the range set by Cabinet.

From 2020, the residence programme will refocus its objectives.

The Governmentʼs new objectives are described as: maximise the contribution of the programme to the economic and social wellbeing of New Zealand and New Zealanders by attracting skilled workers and business migrants; reunify the families of New Zealand residents and citizens; and meet international and humanitarian commitments.

It also aims to manage the overall residence numbers through controlling each component of the programme separately.

Lees-Galloway said the Government would be considering its next steps for the residence programme, alongside other immigration changes.

(Source: Newsroom, Laura Walters)

16/07/19 - David Cohen: The fall of 'higher' education?

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Opinion - We live in memorable academic times. Higher education in New Zealand is on a definite downward roll.

Ministry of Education figures just released show the number of domestic students has taken a significant dip, with just 8.6 percent of adult New Zealanders enrolled in tertiary education last year compared with 12.5 percent 10 years ago and around 11 percent at the turn of the century.

The biggest demographic decline has been among men, whose numbers in tertiary education have gone down from 11.3 percent in 2009 to 7 percent last year.

It wasn't supposed to pan out like this. For the better part of 20 years now successive governments have aggressively promoted higher education as a way of improving the country's intellectual capital and seizing the international momentum for discovering and applying new technologies.

'It's the knowledge economy, stupid' or so one academic leader quipped at the time of the much-ballyhooed Knowledge Wave conference in 2001.

The trend was also not seen as being exclusively about students. Institutions of higher learning in New Zealand - especially the eight universities - have long struggled to keep their best scholars from decamping to loftier campuses in Australia, Britain and the United States. The new policy emphasis would put paid to that, too.

Alas, the signs that all has not quite proceeded to plan have been in evidence for some time. Much of the new activity of recent years was about hauling in more and more new, foreign, fee-paying students rather than young locals who in any event would appear to have more of an eye these days for pursuing a trade than a degree.

And why not? A report commissioned last year by the Industry Training Federation showed apprentices earn more, buy houses and contribute to KiwiSaver earlier than their peers with bachelor's degrees.

What's more, according to the research from Business and Economic Research Limited, or BERL, those who enter the trades are, on average, in a better financial position for most of their lives.

Another survey conducted seven years ago suggested New Zealand degrees were among the most valueless in the OECD - a reckoning that would particularly apply, one assumes, to qualifications in many of the social sciences and media-related courses.

Embarrassing international comparisons may only be part of the story behind the latest figures. Higher education itself isn't all it once was for employers, either.

In the United States an increasing number of companies - including IBM, Apple and Google - are now offering well-paying jobs to those with non- traditional education, which is to say, people without degrees.

Partly the move has to do with skyrocketing tuition fees but organisations are also making a point about the need for having different voices and minds rather than just those who have a conventionally dependable educational experience.

"When you look at people who don't go to school and make their way in the world, those are exceptional human beings," Google's former SVP of People Operations, Laszlo Bock, told The New York Times a few years ago.

"And we should do everything we can to find those people."

In Britain, one of the country's biggest graduate recruiters, accountancy firm Ernst and Young, has entirely eliminated a degree classification from its hiring programmes. The firm says it has found "no evidence" of a correlation between university success and acing it as an accountant.

Will New Zealand employers follow suit? And how will academic institutions respond to the broader trend? Where will the intellectual culture be in another few years?

It sounds like something somebody should be doing a thesis on.

(Source: RNZ, David Cohen)

* David Cohen is a Wellington journalist who writes frequently on educational matters

15/07/19 - Govt to take the decision on the Parent visa category soon

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The government is close on making a decision on the parent category visa, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway told The Indian Weekender in an exclusive interview earlier today.

The parent category visa was suspended in 2016 during the National led- government, and the consultation on the same was started last year to make a decision when to reopen that category.

The parent visa allowed parents of an immigrant living in New Zealand living as a resident or a citizen but was suspended on the context that it created a burden on the taxpayers.

The consultation that started last year is said to have finished, but the government is yet to come to a decision.

Speaking to The Indian Weekender, Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said, “I understand there has been a bit of frustration on not having the decision on that yet and I appreciate the patience.

“There is a lot for the government to weigh up- both ‘for and againstʼ the parent visa category but I am keen to get a decision soon,” Minister Lees- Galloway added.

Minister Lees-Galloway acknowledged that migrants applying or who have already applied for this particular category of visa have been waiting for a long time and need an assurance of its future, and he is keen to get it sorted soon.

“I know a lot of people want a particular decision, but most importantly people want to know what is the future of the parent category visa and I am keen to get that decided soon,” Minister Lees-Galloway affirmed.

On asked to provide a specific timeframe, Minister Lees-Galloway said “I would say its imminent.

“I understand people want the government to make a decision on that and I am keen to get that soon.

On further queried what would happen to the roughly 6000 applicants who have lodged their applications and are still in the queue for long, Minister Lees-Galloway said the result of their applications will still be dependent on the impending decision the government will taking and their [applicantsʼ] needs would be taken into consideration.

“Well, I suppose that is dependent on the decision that we make; but whatever decision we do make, and we will be taking their needs into consideration,” Minister Iain Lees-Galloway confirmed.

(Source: Indian WQeekender)

10/07/19 - Immigration NZ redundancy payouts costly

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Redundancy payouts to 250 staff at Immigration New Zealand have cost almost $8 million - and the restructure has achieved a fraction of the savings it set out to.

Newly released documents show the agency's business plan in 2017 forecast a $32 million benefit over four years based on 25 percent savings in workforce costs.

But with a four per cent saving in those costs now predicted over four years, there is a $0 benefit.

The programme was designed to achieve efficiencies and more consistent decision-making by cutting down visa processing offices from 25 sites to 10 globally and continuing Immigration New Zealand's move from paper to online applications.

Offices, such as Auckland central, Shanghai, Moscow, Jakarta, Hong Kong, were closed last year and Bangkok, Washington, Dubai and Pretoria were downgraded to only deal with local risk and verification work. This year London and New Delhi were also converted.

Reasons given for the benefits of the restructure not being realised include the speed of change, increases in visa applications and a greater focus on fraud.

The National Party say the restructure had a good rationale but was badly implemented.

Its new immigration spokesperson Stuart Smith says businesses, education providers and tourism operators, as well as applicants themselves, were frustrated by delays caused by delays which have followed and a lack of responsiveness to increasing visa volumes.

"They've been very slow to react to what's happening actually on the ground," he says.

"So they had an increase in applications, they had changed things around and hadn't adequately resourced people to manage that increase and to do it in a timely manner.

"And I think that any kind of change requires people thinking on their feet and adapting to the situation as it goes forward."

The INZ reports show staff warned of the cost of losing local knowledge and experienced employees and suggested slowing down the three-year restructure, which ended up taking 18 months.

The visa processing offices remaining are Mumbai, Beijing, three Pacific branches and seven New Zealand offices.

The Henderson office, which was to follow Auckland Central in being closed, will now not only stay open but will also expand. Manila's closure has been deferred.

INZ was planning to make 340 people redundant, and create efficiencies by cutting down on over-processing, and through technology improvements.

It lost 248 people, with redundancy costs of $7.7 million and consultants' costs of $1.7m, but eventually, it needed to recruit more staff across different sites. Those numbers do not include more than 100 staff at the Immigration Contact Centre, which was taken out of INZ into another MBIE group last year.

Its figures now forecast that after eight years, it will almost have reached the benefit prediction it made for 2021.

The scope and pace of change were described as "materially different" to the business case, leading to more staff being needed to support "expedited change activities along a truncated delivery timeline".

The branch closures and conversions happened in 18 months, which the report notes was always going to be an "ambitious task".

The result of inexperienced staff in training taking over from offices based near local markets, coupled with the rise in visa applications, has led to long delays.

A year into the programme, unprocessed applications had soared, and calls were going unanswered at the immigration contact centre.

The programme budget increased due to the condensed timeframe and increased redundancy costs.

"The onshore system, in particular, is currently under stress with visa volumes higher than predicted, and compounded by the arrival onshore of work from closed or converted processing sites," it says in its April report, looking ahead to continued workforce transition and human resources related risks, system capacity pressure and stakeholder feedback.

But the report does signal the successes of the programme, including better quality, more accurate and consistent decisions, and an improvement in identifying risk patterns.

It also expects more efficiencies as staff become experienced.

Cost per decision was falling and economic benefits of having more visa processing done in New Zealand would follow, it said.

Meanwhile, INZ figures show the agency itself is not immune to labour shortages in New Zealand - it has granted seven work visas for immigration officers over the last three years.

(Source; RNZ, Gill_Bonnet

01/07/19 - Number of fraudulent visa applications to New Zealand nearly doubles

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Increases in fraud and more people wanting to come to New Zealand meant applicants classed as high-risk were having to wait longer for decisions on their visas.

Fraudulent visa applications are on the rise in India, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, Immigration New Zealand (INZ) says.

It said it had seen an 88 per cent rise in fraud last year and that was likely the tip of the iceberg, as those were only the confirmed cases.

Immigration assistant general manager Jeannie Melville said increases in fraud and more people wanting to come to New Zealand meant applicants classed as high-risk were having to wait longer for decisions on their visas.

Low-risk visa applicants are now prioritised and others are queued behind them. That has led to long delays in processing, particularly in India, where a restructure of INZ's global operations led to a backlog of applications at a centralised hub in Mumbai.

"While the business economy and private individuals depend on speed, we absolutely have to balance this with the ability to make the right decisions for New Zealand," Ms Melville said.

"With the increasing threats that we're seeing in the immigration space - people trafficking, exploitation, fraud - it's absolutely critical that we strike that balance between the role of immigration in the economic growth of New Zealand, as opposed to the role that we have to steward and manage risk within our system."

Immigration staff were working with education providers to encourage higher quality students, she said.

"We're really conscious that we've got a lot of work to do working with providers, and education agents, licensed advisers, particularly in the Indian market, to make sure that we target those high value students to come to New Zealand."

She said the 88 percent rise in fraudulent applications between 2017 and 2018 only reflected the confirmed cases of fraud.

"It is important to note that the majority of fraud in the immigration space is not able to be confirmed," she said.

"INZ does not dedicate time to confirming fraud where there is no benefit to INZ.

"If we are not satisfied with the likely authenticity of information presented and therefore that an applicant does not meet the relevant instructions, an application may be declined.

"For example, if INZ is not satisfied that funds provided as evidence are genuine and available for the student's use in New Zealand, an application may be declined.

"INZ sees a range of fraud, including fraudulent bank accounts, funds that have no clear origin and can therefore not demonstrate a longer term sustainability or availability for use in New Zealand, and fraudulent prior qualifications and work experience."

(Source; NZ Herald, Gill Bonnett of RNZ)

17/06/19 - New Zealanders furious over partner visa delays

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Thousands of families are being kept apart for months. Credits: Newshub

Kiwis have been left upset and frustrated as their partners face lengthy delays getting visas from Immigration New Zealand.

Partners of New Zealand citizens and residents are meant to be a priority. But an immigration lawyer says he's seen no evidence of that and that thousands of families are being kept apart for months.

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The days of living in the same country as his partner feel a world away for Kiwi Gavin Burgess.

"We didn't get together to be apart you know, we're a couple and we want to be together," he says.

Burgess moved home from Thailand in November, leaving behind Kratae, his partner of two years, who is waiting desperately for her short-term visitor visa application to be approved.

"I'm told today it'll be another five months before we can expect an approval, or a decision at all," he says.

It's a far cry from the 18 days the New Zealand Immigration website says it takes to process most applications.

Immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont says their story is far from the worst he's heard.

"I'm getting daily enquiries from people wondering if something's gone wrong with their applications and I'm having to tell them probably not, there are just very very long delays," he says.

And he says wait times are even longer if, like Kratae, the applicant is from a non-European country.

"The citizenship status of the sponsor doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever, it's more about the nationality of the applicant," he told Newshub.

Immigration New Zealand says that's not the case but Minister Iain Lees- Galloway does accept there are delays and says he's sought assurances work is underway to reduce processing times.

"It seems to me very odd that a Government that's preaching wellbeing would be doing this to New Zealand families," Burgess says.

Because home won't be where his heart is until his partner's application is approved.

(Source: Newshub, Lisette Reymer)

17/06/19 - Slow visa processing 'hurting employers'

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As employers grapple with visa delays, Immigration New Zealand is blaming its slow processing times on unforeseen demand.

Ninety percent of applications for an essential skills work visa are taking three months or longer to process - sparking concern from Education New Zealand as well as local business owners.

Restaurateur and entrepreneur Fleur Caulton of Go To Collection owns nine restaurants including the Madam Woo chain, and said her businesses' need for immigrant workers was "just becoming greater and greater".

But she said her company - and others in the hospitality industry - was getting sick of the delays.

Ms Caulton said the Madam Woo Takapuna branch hired a new manager

in February, but were left in limbo until June due to visa delays.

It put both the employee and the restaurant in a very difficult position as the manager could not earn money while she waited - and having received her signed contract, the restaurant could not legally hire anyone else, she said.

Business NZ Immigration Manager Rachel Simpson said it was the same story up and down the country with a range of businesses.

"All of the industries we know are struggling with this," she said.

It came as the country's unemployment fell to 4.2 percent and labour shortages became prevalent in horticulture, age care and other industries.

But the reality was "no businesses looking to immigration is the first port of call for recruiting staff," even though it was essential that they were able to get more people into their industry, she said.

"Consistency, timeliness and communication around what's going on, is really important for the immigration process."
Immigration New Zealand Assistant General Manager Peter Elms said the delays could be attributed to increasing volumes of visa applications having "far exceeded the the forecasts".

"Over the last two years, we're averaging over 8 percent year-on-year growth in visa volumes. And that was against an original forecast of 3 percent," he said.

In the top five areas occupations listed in essential skills visa applications - chef, dairy farmer, carpenter, retail supervisor and retail manager, he said there was no way to legitimately prove an applicant's skill level - and that led to a lot of people inflating their skills.

There was a series of changes underway to streamline Immigration New Zealand's visa application processing times, put employers "front and centre", and resolve the current issues, he said.

But Ms Simpson said getting service levels up to an acceptable standard should be their priority before going down the path of introducing more changes from employer roles.

And Mr Elms conceded there was room for improvement in Immigration New Zealand's communication processes.

"Absolutely our communications can be better. We can be communicating with the applicant better than we do and we can have better communications with the employer."

(Source; RNZ From Nine to Noon)

13/06/19 - These 30 jobs could get you a visa for the UK, New Zealand and Australia

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We now live in a global economy, where countries often source skills and workforces from all over the world to fill gaps in the economy that may be lacking locally.

South Africans have a reputation for being some of the hardest workers in the world, with research in 2018 showing that our skilled workers are used to putting in 43-hour plus work weeks on the regular.

This makes South African workers some of the most sought-after by companies, and shoe-ins for the many skill visas on offer from countries like Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Statistics provided to BusinessTech by Stats NZ show that 2,953 South Africans entered New Zealand on a work visa in 2018.

The ‘skill stream‘ is by far the most popular way for South Africans to move to Australia, with a total of 4,419 South African applicants on this visa type in 2016/17.

In New Zealand, approximately 7,900 South Africans made the move to the island nation between 2017 and 2018 – and the UK is also a net beneficiary of South African skills, adding approximately 7,300 South Africans at last reporting (2017).

Below are the jobs that frequently feature on the skills lists of Australia, New Zealand and the UK which will help South Africans land a job in these countries.

UK

To combat a so-called ‘Brexodusʼ – the departure of talented professionals or companies leaving the UK due to Brexit – the UKʼs Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has updated its
recommended shortage occupation list (SOL) – adding new occupations to the list and expanding current jobs to include all roles within that occupation.

The new list would include nearly 10% of jobs in the UK labour market, compared with 1% under the current list.

Some of the most notable jobs on the revised recommended SOL list include:

• Civil engineers

• Mechanical engineers
• IT business analysts, architects and systems designers
• Medical practitioners
• 
Nurses
• Teachers;
• Graphic designers;
• Web design and development professionals
• Programmers and software development professionals
• Dancers and choreographers;
• Chefs.

Australia

Australia has undergone a number of visa reforms over the last year in a bid to curb high immigration levels.

This includes reducing the number of jobs which would be eligible for a temporary visa by over 200 occupations and a possible ban on immigrants moving to Sydney and Melbourne.

Immigration consultants, Sable International, said that while cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Perth continue to become more developed, rural areas in regional Australia are slowly but surely becoming more urban. In both the big cities and regional territories, the key skills of trade workers are needed to keep this development going strong.

“The current supply of trade workers is simply not satisfying the demand in Oz, which is why occupations like bricklayers, building inspectors, plumbers and electricians continue to feature on Australiaʼs list of eligible skilled occupations.”

However, they are not the only jobs in demand, and the Australian Department of Home Affairs keeps a detailed list of these occupations as well as the visa you would need to apply here.

These jobs include:

• Chef;
• Civil Engineer;
• Early Childhood (Pre-primary School) Teacher 
• Electrician (General)
• 
ICT Business Analyst
• Landscape Architect
• Life Scientist (General)
• Locksmith;
• Management Consultant
• Occupational Therapist
• Panelbeater
• Registered Nurse
• Software Engineer
• Telecommunications Engineer
• Zoologist.

New Zealand

New Zealand has published its updated Essential Skills in Demand (ESID) lists for 2019, highlighting the jobs that foreigners could help fill.

The country currently has three different lists – long term, immediate and regional – that records the skill shortages it faces.

If a job is on a list, a New Zealand business can apply for a visa for a qualified worker from overseas.

One of the most in-demand skills is teaching, as the country has faced continued to face a teacher shortage in recent years.
New Zealand Immigration said that it is looking for early childhood, primary school, and secondary school teachers across all regions.

In November 2018, New Zealand education minister Chris
Hipkins said that he would target countries with teaching qualifications that are similar to New Zealand, including the UK, Ireland Canada, South Africa, Australia and Fiji.

Other jobs which feature on the shortage list include:

• Clinical psychologist
• Developer
• 
Electrician
• Engineering (chemical, electric, mechanical, structural)
• General Practitioner
• ICT Project Manager
• Physiotherapist
• Programmer
• Software Engineer
• Veterinarian 
  
  

You can check for your job using Immigration New Zealandʼs search function here.

(Source: Businesstech, staff writer)

13/06/19 - Delayed parent visa decision: 'It's not a stalemate'

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Families waiting for a government decision on whether overseas parents can join them say they feel like collateral damage as they wait for coalition parties to come to an agreement on immigration.

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says political allies have raised questions over what was being proposed for the frozen parent visa category.

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway denies there is a stalemate, but says he has been unable to reach consensus with coalition partners over the parent category, which was suspended in 2016.

The visa allowed parents to join an immigrant child who had become a resident or citizen, but came under fire over disputed claims about the burden on taxpayers.

Thousands of applicants are waiting for a policy announcement.

Suspicions over New Zealand First's involvement in the continued lack of an announcement were raised by the party's MP Mark Patterson, who said the category would not be re-opened while the party was in government.

He subsequently corrected himself. But New Zealand First leader Winston Peters made his position clear before the category was suspended, highlighting claims that children were not living up to their sponsorship commitments and abandoning them to the welfare system.
 
Mr Lees-Galloway said officials had carried out the reviews, but its political allies had raised questions over what he was proposing.

"Some of these things just take time," he said. "Sometimes you need to work through the details and keep the conversation going. I wouldn't say - it's not a stalemate. It's just that this is one of those things which is taking a bit of time, but we continue to work through the questions and the details and I'm very keen to get to a decision."

He said he understood people's frustrations, and it was unfortunate that the previous government stopped the decision-making process for parents while continuing to accept applications, which he says fuelled the frustration.

But he accepted his government had not changed that process and was also still taking expressions of interest, which carry a $490 fee.

He still hoped for a decision in the "very near future".

"It's been on the agenda for a while now," he said. "We have that information now before us that now, the job of the government as a whole now is to reach a consensus view across the various parties of government. I'm still working towards that and I'm very keen to get a decision so that people have certainty about the future of the parent category."

New Zealander Brian Bookman, whose mother-in-law turns 85 next week in England, said the government claims kindness and well-being, and should "unlock and unravel this constipated immigration category".

"The Winston factor has only been in the realm of speculation, and I've just been at a loss as to understand why there has been such delay," he said.

"So now we're getting, maybe we are getting some clarity that it is a Winston thing."

Simon Sebastian, who runs a business in Hamilton, said his widowed mother Mary Sebastian has to leave in two months' time after reaching the maximum 18-month period allowed under a grandparent visa, missing the birth of her second grandchild.

The 68-year-old will have to stay in India for another 18 months before she can return.

The terms of that visa meant that she had to leave New Zealand every six months, so he has had to take leave to accompany her on short breaks in Australia or Fiji, to stay eligible.
"I strongly believe I have the ability, I have the money to look after my Mum," he said. "I have a job. I have a business. And I'm really happy to look after my Mum.

"I don't want any single Panadol from the New Zealand government. What I'm feeling is they're not doing their job properly. If they were doing their job properly, people won't suffer like this."

Immigration lawyer Richard Howard said before the election Labour strongly suggested it would re-open the parent category, but he was not holding his breath after many false starts.

"Clearly, it's a consequence of coalition government and Labour is keen on reintroducing a parent policy of some type and its coalition partners are not. And at this stage there doesn't seem to be any way forward from it," he said.

"It's not a good situation when the government is continuing to take some $490 off prospective applicants who legitimately would hold an expectation that something will eventuate from that initial application."

(Source: Radio NZ, Gill Bonnett)