Immigration NZ has just announced a raft of changes that impact Employer Accreditation, job checks and Accredited Employer work visas. The changes reintroduce the concept of higher and lower-skilled jobs as defined under ANZSCO.
1. Changes to accreditation requirements
There are a couple of new requirements as part of employer accreditation as follows:
- Employers must inform Immigration NZ of a migrant employee’s departure within 10 working days of their leaving (Note this only takes effect in their future accreditation periods – not now).
- Employers must take reasonable steps (and keep accurate records) to ensure that a migrant worker genuinely holds the skills and experience to be suitably qualified for a job (e.g. sighting relevant documents, conducting interviews and/or practical testing) and they meet minimum skills thresholds (see work visa changes section below)
2. Changes to job checks
This is one area where significantly more complexity has been introduced for Job check requirements for lower skilled jobs in particular.
These now require 21 days of advertising and engagement with Work and Income (WINZ) and there will need to be significant engagement with New Zealanders who may be suitable for the role. Employers also now need to ensure NZ citizen or resident candidates are not only not suitable or available for the role in question, but also not readily trainable for the role.
Jobs on the Green list are unchanged, still requiring 14 days of advertising and no engagement with WINZ.
Whether a job is considered higher or lower skilled is determined by the most appropriate ANZSCO code. This is another area that will add complexity for employers. Immigration Officers will assess a job/job description against ANZSCO to see if it is an appropriate match. If the Immigration Officer determines that the skill level is not at the level claimed, they can require that the employer meets all the lower-skilled job advertising requirements.
The flowchart below gives a brief understanding of the changes to advertising requirements.
It is important to note that job checks are not connected to a specific migrant worker but can be used for any migrant worker. Therefore, if you have candidates in mind who may not meet these new requirements, you can still use your job check for other candidates who do meet requirements.
3. Changes to requirements for new AEWVs and some Residency changes: See our separate blog on these changes.
Contact us to talk about how these changes may affect you and your staff.
Steven Dunning
Licensed Immigration Adviser 201600793