Essential Skills Visa delay

[Nibe]

Hi everybody,
I'm new here and I need your advice.
I'm a hairdresser from Germany with a joboffer in NZ.
My migration agent sent my visa application 91 days ago and no CO in sight.
He wrote to me yesterday my case landed in Christchurch and not in Hamilton (job is in BOP).
At the moment INZ prefers high-skilled jobs and my job is only mid-skilled.
I'm scared my employer isn't willing to wait for me any longer.
I can't understand how it could be they take that long.
Has anybody an idea what I can do to fasten the process?
I hope my agent didn't make a mistake. I think he makes a good job but he is only a human.
Do I get my visa from INZ directly via E-Mail or do my agent get it first?
What should I tell my employer?

Ahhh, this is like a thriller!

[JandM]

If you look around on the forum you will see there are people waiting in long queues for just about all kinds of visa at the moment. INZ have a backlog since the end of last year when there was an unexpected rush of applications, at the same time as the government imposed a chaotic reorganization.

Most of the time an application is in is spent waiting in a queue, first, to get assigned to a CO, and then for the CO's attention to come round to it again, because all COs work around 100 cases in rotation.

The only thing you can tell the employer is that you are waiting for the visa, and you can't make any difference to what is happening there. Once you get a CO, you can make sure that you (and the employer) answer very promptly any questions they ask, but that is the only thing you can do to speed things up. INZ work everything in date-order queues, out of fairness to everybody, so there is no way to get your case dealt with out of turn.

I THINK the email with the eVisa will come directly to you. Can anyone share what happened if they were using an LIA?

[allune]

@JandM if a visa is lodged with an LIA the visa will be supplied to him or her. Then the visa will have something like if this visa application had been made with an LIA, please supply a copy to the applicant.

[JandM]

Thank you.

[EGoodhue]

It might be worthwhile asking your employer to write a letter explaining that they need you to start work as soon as possible - give it to your LIA and ask them to email it to the manager of the Christchurch team (your LIA should know who this is and have their details). It's not guaranteed to help you jump the queue, but I have seen instances recently where this has worked in getting an application processed faster.

[positive spirit]

Hello guys,

anybody here who has lodged their application on July 17 and still waiting for the visa approval?

[Claire Russell]

Hi. My essential skills visa was submitted 15 July 2019 and we havent heard anything yet. This wait is so hard.

[positive spirit]

Please keep us posted for any update on your visa application.

My case officer called me two weeks ago to verify my work experiences and after a week they called my employer for some verification too.

I do not know if this is positive , but i am keeping my fingers crossed.

[Claire Russell]

That's good that you have a CO already. Our daughter has a medical condition so I thought they may have been in touch for more info by now, although I did provide supporting docs at the medical. Hopefully we will all hear something soon.

[positive spirit]

@Claire Russell, I also have medical condition but they did not asked me about that. I don't know if there will be another round of checking after they called me.
anyway, as they say "no news is good news" so let us just hope for the best.

I'll let all of you know once I get an update.

cheers