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Concerns Over Construction Sector Talent Loss After Immigration NZ Website Crash
There are fears that competing countries are attracting migrant worker talent as New Zealand’s visa process for drawing in migrant workers is lagging behind. With many now calling for an overhaul of New Zealand’s immigration settings.
Following an error on the Immigration New Zealand (INZ) website which made it impossible to apply for a job check for three weeks. A construction sector labour-hiring company has laid a formal complaint with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
The job check is a mandatory step of the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV), requiring employers to prove that they have a skills shortage and that they are unable to fill their vacancies with New Zealand employees.
According to the INZ website, the job check also ensures that migrants allowed into the country on AEWVs "are mostly filling higher-skilled roles".
After being locked out of the website, and unable to solve the issue with MBIE, Building Recruitment's managing director Kevin Everett had to turn to his local MP in the Epsom electorate, Act Party leader David Seymour, to raise the issue in Parliament.
Everett said the issue was fixed a few days later, but he was later informed by an INZ technical adviser that due to unexpected demand it would take a further six working days, on top of the standard ten, to assess the job check.
Everett said that considering one of the biggest conversations in the country is the demand for skilled labour, it was unbelievable that INZ was apparently unprepared for the surge of applications it received.
He further stated, "As a labour hire company, we pay close to three times the amount as any other industry for accreditation – and our accreditation only lasts for 12 months, compared to up to three years for everybody else.
"We had a number of people from the Philippines lined up to come over. These guys had 10-plus years’ experience in carpentry, and we've lost about 50 per cent of those people to Canada.
"A skills shortage isn't just about New Zealand – it's a worldwide skills shortage, and here's us losing the people we had put time into interviewing because we can't offer them any security until we go through the job check process.
"We’re just letting other countries to get in and snap them up."
After losing more than a month due to technical issues, Everett said he'd been told by INZ that the visa process itself would take a further 20 working days.
Seymour claimed INZ was "the number one department sending people to MPs' offices". Saying that nobody should have to go to their local MP to get migrant workers into the country during a prolonged labour shortage.
Seymour further stated, "We need a major revamp because the world is now competing for talent, and we still have the 2016 attitude that it's a privilege to even apply to come to New Zealand.
"We should drop the labour market opinion requirement. It is nuts to make every business demonstrate that it needs workers when we know the whole economy is facing a labour crisis.
“Issuing a visa is no more complicated than issuing a mortgage, checking an applicant meets the criteria.
"No bank would shut down for two years, then say it can't keep up with demand once its reopened, but that's what Immigration New Zealand has got away with."
Nicola Hogg, MBIE's general manager of border and visa operations, said all AEWV applications are being made on a newly improved online immigration platform.
Hogg explained, "Not only are our customers learning how to navigate the new technology and visa policy, but our staff are also learning how to process this new category in a live environment while helping to educate employers on what is needed.
"The Employer Accreditation process is working well, but we acknowledge there have been some initial issues and that this has caused some frustration.”
After opening on May 23 and as of July 31, INZ has received 8,110 employer accreditation applications and 7,338 of which have been approved.
Job check applications opened on June 20 and 3,321 have so far been received, totalling to 21,510 jobs. Of those, 817 have been approved, working out at roughly 6,130 jobs.
With the hope that more applications will be made once the problems with INZ’s website have been fully resolved, as New Zealand continues to be an attractive place to work, especially for skilled migrants in the construction and building sectors.