SMC advice please?

[Glyn_G]

I'm very keen to emigrate to NZ. I'm from the UK, in my early 30s and with no surviving immediate family.

I'm in Christchurch and have one year of experience working as a painter. I'd hoped to get a work visa to stay longer but wasn't able to due to having less than 3 years of experience. This is my plan – to return to the UK, work for another year and 6-9 months as a painter then return to NZ using a Bunac working holiday visa as I will still be under 35. I would find painting work and apply for residency once I have the 3 years, allowing 6-9 months left on the working holiday visa for the residency application to go through as I gather it takes this long. Using the Skilled Migrant points calculator for where I will be then gives me a score of 150. Does this sound like a viable strategy? Any advice or things I should be aware of?

Once I have the 3 years experience to qualify as skilled could a NZ employer freely offer me an ongoing contract to get residency. Or do they have to advertise the job preferentially to existing NZ residents and only offer it to me if they can't find one? The latter would be disappointing as it'd make it a lot harder / less likely.

Since I will then have the 3 years of experience to count as skilled instead of the formal qualification asked for the ANZSCO page, then I can score SMC points for having a UK degree despite the subject area (philosophy) being unrelated to the painting work. Correct?

Once I get residency can I then go off and do other sorts of work entirely and still get Permanent Residency in two years more? The Permanent Residency requirements online don't mention having to work in the area you got the SMC for.

[JandM]

This is my plan – to return to the UK, work for another year and 6-9 months as a painter then return to NZ using a Bunac working holiday visa as I will still be under 35. I would find painting work and apply for residency once I have the 3 years, allowing 6-9 months left on the working holiday visa for the residency application to go through as I gather it takes this long. Using the Skilled Migrant points calculator for where I will be then gives me a score of 150. Does this sound like a viable strategy? Any advice or things I should be aware of?

This sounds as though it should work. Extra thoughts - getting Residence can sometimes take longer, in which case you may need to be prepared to apply for a temporary work visa alongside the Residence application, since this can be processed more quickly, and cover you in the meantime. If you lodge your application for Residence, and then your existing visa is near coming to an end, there is provision for a temporary work visa to be issued with fewer formalities on the grounds that you have applied for Residence and it is being considered. WK2.5.1 here http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/i34501.htm.

Once I have the 3 years experience to qualify as skilled could a NZ employer freely offer me an ongoing contract to get residency. Or do they have to advertise the job preferentially to existing NZ residents and only offer it to me if they can't find one?

It depends. If the employer already has approval in principle to employ overseas workers, or if the job is on one of the Skills lists, there isn't a requirement for a labour market test. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...entialwork.htm http://glossary.immigration.govt.nz/...anuary2013.pdf

Since I will then have the 3 years of experience to count as skilled instead of the formal qualification asked for the ANZSCO page, then I can score SMC points for having a UK degree despite the subject area (philosophy) being unrelated to the painting work. Correct?

Yes.

Once I get residency can I then go off and do other sorts of work entirely and still get Permanent Residency in two years more? The Permanent Residency requirements online don't mention having to work in the area you got the SMC for.

Yes, once you have met any conditions on first grant of Residence. When someone applies with a job or job offer as part of their application, the Residence can be granted with a Section 49(1) condition on it, that the person must work in that job for three months. After that time, still working there, they go to INZ with proof such as payslips that they have met the condition, then a new Residence sticker with no conditions will be put in their passport. Very often, in the situation that you're planning for, however, the applicant will actually have been working in the job for three months and longer during the processing of the application, and then the condition is not usually applied.

[Glyn_G]

Great, thanks for the answers so far! I'm still a bit worried / nervous about the whole thing though – I'd have to commit two more years of my life to an occupation I wouldn't do otherwise, with the hope it would get me residency but the quite feasible possibility it might come to nothing.

It depends. If the employer already has approval in principle to employ overseas workers, or if the job is on one of the Skills lists, there isn't a requirement for a labour market test. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...entialwork.htm http://glossary.immigration.govt.nz/...anuary2013.pdf

Ok. Painting trades worker is currently on the CSSL, though not on the ISSL or LSSL. I wonder if it will still be on the CSSL in two years time when I would be applying though, I worry it may not be by then.

If I did have to go through a labour market check would I have much chance or would it be unlikely to pass? Are they locality specific? Could I apply for a job somewhere rural / out of the way where there might not be other applicants.

Worryingly I have just stumbled across the fact that Painting Trades Worker is on a list of occupation​s from last year flagged as borderline and for possible future removal from the Skilled Occupations List -
http://www.awpa.gov.au/our-work/labo...cupations.aspx If it gets removed in the next update in June would that mean it would no longer count as a skilled occupation in terms of the SMC?

[JandM]

Like many people faced with getting a visa, you would like to read your future. Sympathies, and I'm not being flippant, but there isn't a sure-fire way to do this.

So, some thoughts on your questions - but these are just the thoughts of a lay person, without any force of certainty, and will still leave you with your own concerns and decisions.

The Christchurch rebuild is a HUGE project. Of course there's no way to tell exactly how long it's going to take, but so far, there hasn't been any sign of the special arrangements for foreign workers being wound down - the whole routine work of INZ in New Zealand has been altered to accommodate the extra work involved in processing visas for the skilled immigrants needed.

Labour market check. Yes, if one particular employer can show s/he's drawn a blank in finding a suitable NZ national or visa holder to fill his vacancy, having run a reasonable amount of advertising, he can get approval. This is entirely based on the THE ONE case, so nobody is going to be stopping him hiring his foreign applicant on the grounds that there are e.g. painters at the north of North Island looking for work, when he's at the south of South Island. But INZ are aware of all the wrinkles. Here are the instructions on this point. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/45981.htm

It still seems likely that the largest need for extra painters is going to be around Christchurch. There aren't huge building projects elsewhere in the country, and it's the kind of skill where, in normal circumstances, each area tends to 'grow' and support the appropriate number of small businesses.

http://www.awpa.gov.au/our-work/labo...cupations.aspx applies to Australia - the immigration requirements of the two countries are entirely separate. Don't be fooled by the fact that they share job definitions in the form of the ANZSCO list. Painter is on the CSSL and the List of Skilled Occupations, and it can't be denied as the latter. (In quite recent years, for instance, the teaching profession got removed from the LTSSL when it came to the point that NZ had trained enough nationals to cover the serious lack there had been, but the job still remains as a Skilled Occupation, so if someone gets a job offer, it can lead to Residence.)