What a week and a half. We arrived in Auckland and went straight to an interview that morning (stress!) I was offered a position and the company is an accredited employer. Good news all around--we were not expecting anything this fast and now are racing to get a work permit. There is a "problem" though and we wonder if anyone has come across this situation:
I thought I could get a "general work permit" so I could begin work and then go onto applying for PR. Not so fast, according to the immigration person I just spoke with. He says because it is an accredited employer, you will be offered WTR and not necessarily a "general work permit". He indicated that a general work permit does not exist but is actually called an "essential skills permit". From reading the forum, we thought a GWP was an option.
Did we uncorrectly assume that we were able to get a gwv with a job offer, start working, submit our EOI, get an ITA, then apply for PR? He said that generally with a job offer from an accredited employer you would be offered WTR for 2 yrs. That would be fine if we wanted to stay in Auckland for 2 yrs, but we don't. We want to work here for a year in the aforementioned position, apply for residency, and then move to our #1 choice location in the Bay of Plenty (not many jobs there). We also plan on getting pregnant within 2 yrs, so our PR would be automatically denied due to pregnancy.
Has anyone recieved this elusive "general work permit" with a job offer and then started working, then submitted the EOI, etc.?