INZ has
announced the following changes to the Essential Skills Work Visa, to take effect for applications lodged on or after 27 July 2020:
Goodbye ANZSCO, hello wage threshold
ANZSCO will no longer be used to determine whether someone is low, mid or high skilled.
Instead, the assessment will now be based purely on remuneration, based on the hourly rate. Applicants will be assessed as either:
- at or above the median wage, or
- below the median wage.
INZ will use the current median wage of $25.50 per hour.
Effectively, applicants who are assessed as at or above the median wage will be processed as mid-skilled applicants are now, and applicants who are assessed as below the median wage will be processed as low-skilled applicants are now. So:
- Visa duration: 3 years for work paying at or above the median wage, 6 months for work paying below the median wage. Essential Skills visa durations of 5 years now fall away.
- Stand-down period: applies to work paying below the median wage. Once you have been in New Zealand for 3 years for work paying below the median wage (or work previously assessed as low-skilled), you are required to leave New Zealand for 12 months before you can apply for another Work Visa that pays below the median wage. (This is pretty much the same provision that was previously applied to low-skilled Essential Work Visas.) Note that there is a delay to the stand-down period in some cases as a COVID-19 response.
- Skills match report from MSD: required for work being paid below the median wage (previously required for work assessed as low-skilled).
The requirement for employers to make genuine attempts to hire New Zealanders over migrants remains unchanged.
Eligibility to support family
For those assessed as being paid at or above the median wage, this remains the same as previous mid-skilled or high-skilled Essential Skills Work Visas. You will continue to be able to support a Work Visa or Visitor Visa for your partner, and a Visitor Visa or Student Visa for dependent children.
For those assessed as being paid below the median wage, the eligibility to support family has been widened from previous low-skilled Essential Skills Work Visas. You are now able to support a Visitor Visa for your partner (but not a Work Visa; your partner would need to qualify for a Work Visa in his or her own right). You are now also able to support a Visitor Visa or a Student Visa for a dependent child, but only if you meet the minimum income threshold (currently $43,322.76 or more per year).
In conclusion
It looks drastic, but it really isn't. Effectively, ANZSCO disappears and wage thresholds replace the skill band assessment, and all existing instructions and restrictions now fit around the wage threshold assessment.
This will, however, have a negative impact on people previously assessed as mid-skilled with pay rates below $25.50 per hour: they will now fall into the new "lower-pay" band and in the same boat as people previously assessed as low-skilled currently are.
None of these changes should come as a surprise though: we've
known since 2019 that they were coming.