The government will allow 3000 more Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme (RSE) people into New Zealand in response to the global workforce shortage.
Immigration Minister Michael Wood and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said the new RSE cap will allow access to 19,000 workers annually from participating Pacific countries, providing workforce relief to the horticulture and wine sector.
“The additional 3000 places is a 19% increase on the previous season, and acknowledges the industry’s current needs based on strong growth, and the lower number of working holiday makers onshore right now,” Wood said.
“We are listening to industry, and worked closely with horticulture and wine sectors to ensure we strike the right balance by incentivising local employment, bringing in further additional workers, and also requiring working conditions to be improved.
O’Connor said the decision is part of a balanced programme to lift export earnings and provide economic security for NZ.
“Agriculture exports earned a record $53 billion last year, and it’s critical to our recovery that we have the workforce to continue maximising production and earnings,” O’Connor said
“We’ve been working with the sector and making good progress on growing a local workforce, with nearly 10,000 New Zealanders attracted into food and fibre jobs over the past few years through our ‘Opportunity Grows Here’ campaign, and primary sector workforce programme.
“The RSE scheme is not designed to completely fill all roles in the horticulture and viticulture industries. This cap maintains pressure on RSE employers to continue recruiting New Zealanders where possible, improve pay and conditions for workers, and invest in automation,” O’Connor said.
“Additionally, over the last year we’ve received over 30,499 Working Holiday applications, and numbers are continuing to rise. With over 6200 working holidaymakers in country, double the number we had in October 2021, we remain confident that further relief to the workforce shortages will come as we approach summer,” Wood said.
The new cap was settled on a tri-partite basis for the first time ever, with both employer groups and unions at the table, enabling a discussion about both the number of workers and how we can ensure good employment practices.
In setting the cap, the government has also taken into consideration concerns expressed about working conditions from RSE workers.
“The wellbeing of RSE workers is a priority for us, and we have worked with industry and unions to introduce a new provision, that employers will be required to provide a sick leave entitlement to RSE workers. That is in addition to the pre-existing minimum wage requirement of $22.10, which we introduced during the pandemic,” Wood said.
“We continue to work urgently with the industry and unions on further short-term improvements and employee safe guards to provide greater protections to workers. This work is in addition to our wider policy review to improve the RSE scheme for workers, as previously signalled.
“We recognise the important role the RSE scheme provides to our nation’s primary production sector and wider economy. We are committed to working with industry and unions so we can continue to maximise benefits of the scheme for Pacific workers, local employers, and our Pacific neighbours,” Wood said.
