Well after finally getting my partnership-based residency visa, we've moved to Christchurch. Been looking for a job for a month with not much luck.
Anyway, usually job ads will say something like "Applicants for this position should have NZ residency or a valid NZ work visa or be an NZ citizen." Which is fine, since I'm a resident.
But then other jobs will say something like "must have permanent resident status or NZ citizenship." Often jobs that don't mention this on the job description will have an online form where the only options are "NZ Citizen" or "Permanent Resident." If I put anything else like "Other," it asks me for a visa expiration date. But my resident visa doesn't have an expiration date so I can't even complete the form.
A while ago I even saw an online job ad for Immigration New Zealand that said only citizens and permanent residents could apply!!!
Now, the INZ site says this of Resident visas: "You can work in any occupation for any employer in New Zealand." Seems pretty simple and straightforward.
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...-resident-visa
I've done a bit of googling to see if there's any kind of employability difference between Resident and PR visas and I haven't seen anything. I did see an old topic here where JandM said that Resident visas used to be called something like "Permanent Resident with Travel Conditions" and PR was called something like "Permanent Resident without Travel Conditions"....so I'm wondering if some employers just don't understand the difference between Resident and Permanent Resident, which from what I can see should only be a difference in travel conditions and NOT employment conditions.
So basically my question is, can employers legally discriminate against Resident visa holders in favor of Permanent Residency holders, or is it just a misunderstanding on their part?
I realize that employers can do whatever they want with an application, and I suppose they might assume that Residents wouldn't be as likely to stay in NZ long-term, but it seems odd to me that in public job ads they would state a visa preference that doesn't sound exactly legal. And it really seems odd that even a job ad for INZ would state this preference. Are there any legal rules or documentation that says that employers can refuse to hire Residents or state a refusal to hire them?