A new work to residence visa has recently been introduced, the South Island Contribution work visa. The objective is:
- recognise well-settled temporary migrants who have made a commitment to New Zealand and their South Island communities; and
- meet genuine regional labour market needs and contribute to individual firm productivity, by enabling employers to maintain an experienced workforce; and
- minimise the risk of displacing New Zealanders from employment opportunities or hindering improvements to wages, working conditions or industry-wide productivity growth.
One of the work instructions required to be granted this visa is:
- have undertaken full-time, lawful employment in the South Island as the holder of an Essential Skills work visa, or an interim visa, for five years between 22 May 2012 and 22 May 2017
This seems to make sense, a lower skilled applicant having held an essential skills visa for 5 years means that labour market checks were done to ensure that New Zealanders were not displaced from employment opportunities etc. This applicant would then be eligible for this visa based on their being settled in NZ and having made a contribution to an industry in which there was an ongoing labour shortage, and their South Island community, as per the visa objective.
However, consider the following scenarios.
Bob, a temporary migrant, applies for a low skilled job in the South Island in May 2012. The company sponsors him based on there being no available New Zealanders, and he receives an essential skills visa for one year. The next year, he reapplies, but a labour market check turns up a suitable New Zealander, who is then employed instead of Bob. No worries, as Bob applies for a low skilled job in another company in another industry, and again is granted an essential skills visa due to no NZers being available. This process of Bob going into a different job each year continues for 5 years.
Bob then applies for the South Island Contribution visa and meets all of the work instructions and is therefore eligible.
Alice, another temporary migrant, arrives in New Zealand on a working holiday visa in 2012. She gains employment in a small South Island company which has difficulty finding people in the low skilled but niche market in which it operates. A couple of Alice's colleagues are temporary migrants who are already on essential skills visas, as the company finds it very hard to find suitable NZers. A year later when her working holiday visa is due to expire, Alice applies for an essential skills visa and is granted one. She reapplies each year for 4 years and is granted a visa each time, due to advertising and labour market checks finding no suitable NZers.
Alice then applies for the South Island Contribution visa, but is declined as she does not meet the work instructions.
So Bob, who has floated around low skilled jobs for 5 years, never becoming an experienced staff member and never working in a job for which there is an ongoing labour shortage, is eligible for the visa. Alice, now an experienced staff member who has worked for 5 years in a job for which there has been a demonstrable labour shortage for the 5 years, is not eligible for the visa because she has only held an essential skills visa for 4 years, despite working in that same job for 5 years, and despite there being a proven labour shortage for all of those 5 years.
Does this seem right to you? Is there something I'm missing?
This seems even more absurd if Bob gets a job at Alice's company in his 5th year, and applies for the South Island Contribution visa based on his job offer with that company.
Can anyone help me make sense of this, as this specific work instruction doesn't seem to support the visa objective at all.
Cheers.