The Government’s immigration reset will have minimal impact on the labour-short primary sector, observers say.
Vets are the only primary sector jobs included in the newly-created green list of 85 hard-to-fill roles, a new migrant category created by the Government to attract and retain high skilled workers.
Senior dairy farm management roles are included in the work to residence category that allows visa holders to apply for residency after two years working here.
In the interim they must be paid twice the median wage.
National Party Immigration spokeswoman Erica Stanford says the most glaring omission in the Government’s announcement last week was not providing certainty for skilled migrants.
Applications for this category have been closed since 2020, during which time Australia and Canada have started offering residency to skilled migrants who can work in areas where they are needed.
“Why would someone sell their house, leave their job, uplift their families and come to a job in NZ not knowing if there is a pathway to residency?” she says.
Another Government policy change includes sector agreements for the care, construction and infrastructure, meat processing, seafood, and the seasonal snow and adventure tourism sectors that allows access to lower-paid migrants.
“Each of these sectors will be provided limited exceptions to the median wage requirement in exchange for ongoing improvements,” the Government press release states.
These sectors have traditionally relied on lower-paid migrants but this provision will provide time to improve working conditions, training and the upskilling of NZers, it adds.
The meat industry is short 2000 workers this season and the dairy industry 4000.
Southland dairy farmer Jason Herrick says there is nothing in the immigration reset to assist the shortage of farm workers.
“We need people to put cups on cows,” he says.
Herrick says to qualify to be an accredited employer so he can recruit migrant staff, he now has to provide Immigration NZ with financial information about his business.
“I have no idea why, but at the end of the day I suppose it is to provide employees with some certainty that we are a financial stable employer.”
Under its immigration reset, the Government says employers won’t need to provide as much information and can show that their own recruitment processes have proven that no NZers were available for work.
It states Immigration New Zealand will endeavour to have these visas processed within 30 days once an employer is accredited.
Whether that requires financial information to be supplied is unclear.
“We have worked closely with businesses on these reforms and understand that for some sectors it will take time to transition away from a reliance on cheap migrant labour,” Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi said when announcing the policy change last week.
“The Government recognises that shift for some sectors is more challenging than others by establishing new sector agreements to assist with the transition.
“They will provide access for specified sectors to lower-paid migrant workers, and all those employers can continue to hire working holidaymakers at any wage.”
A spokesperson for Faafoi said work on skilled residence pathways is underway and will be fed into the new Skilled Migrant Category settings which will reopen later in the year.
The spokesperson says about 80% of Essential Skills Visa holders in the primary sectors were paid at or above the median wage.
Primary sector employers have already taken steps to provide more attractive career pathways for NZers and the Minister wants that to continue once borders reopen.
The sector agreement with the meat industry means it can pay below the legislated minimum median wage for migrant workers.
The Recognised Seasonal Employer and Working Holiday Schemes are not impacted by the changes.
