Government to let in more migrants

John Miller

The Government is allowing more migrants into the country, instructing the Immigration Service to approve more applications as the labour and skills shortage continues to bite.

Six months after the introduction of tough new regulations that require migrants to demonstrate university-standard English and to lodge "expressions of interest" for residency, the number of migrants wanting to move here has declined sharply.

Now the Government is set to lower the "pass mark" for migrants and will launch a marketing campaign targeting skilled migrants who speak good English whom it considers will settle well into the community.

National is calling the collapse in skilled migration in particular a disaster, and says it is a serious threat to the economy.

According to New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) figures, total applications for residency fell from a peak of 4500 last July to 2699 in December, when the new immigration policy was announced. By January this year, applications fell to 2031 and to 1828 for February, before stabilising around 2200 during March and April.

Applications from some Asian countries have halved since the new English language requirements were introduced.

National's immigration spokesman Wayne Mapp said that according to figures obtained from the NZIS, the numbers have declined further since May. Mapp said 1198 people had lodged an expression of interest under the skilled migrant category in the past three months.

"That's out of a maximum annual quota of 28,000. Clearly the Government's new immigration system isn't working ...

"Unless we take a realistic view there is no chance of attracting sufficient numbers of skilled migrants. The disgraceful state of our immigration policy is harming our ability to attract high quality migrants."

Immigration Minister Paul Swain said the Government was focusing on quality, not quantity. He put the decline down to a reduction in the average family size of applicants, the lapsing of "lower quality applications" when the new scheme was introduced last December, and improved detection of fraudulent applications.

New Zealand would accept up to 50,000 migrants in the year ending June 2005, Swain said, up from 45,000 at present. In the year just ended, there were 39,000 residency approvals, 6000 under the cap.

Swain has also signalled the NZIS would lower the benchmark for acceptance.

"Given New Zealand's tight labour market and demand both for and from skilled workers, the Immigration Service will be aiming to approve applications to the upper end of the range."

Immigration was always a balancing act between stimulating the economy and recognising New Zealand's ability to absorb new migrants, Swain said.

Under the new points system, applications are assessed against a range of criteria and given a ranking.

The NZIS began in January with a benchmark of 190 points for acceptance but this has since been lowered to 150. Since the beginning of the year, 6684 expressions of interest had been received. Some 3800 had been accepted, covering 9216 people. Around 1200 invitations to apply had been sent and 183 applications covering 517 people approved, Swain said.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the Government was attempting to keep the domestic economy humming by importing more migrants to boost consumer spending.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2962865a10,00.html

evelynne_r · I Like It Here Joined: 25 Jan 2004 Posts: 94

Interesting... Just what we potential migrants have known all along - the passmark has been too high for too long, and people are looking elsewhere.[/list]

evelynne_r · I Like It Here Joined: 25 Jan 2004 Posts: 94

Ok, one thing just struck me - according to the article, 39,000 people out of a maximum of 45,000 were granted residency. Surely one of the big issues of the introduction of the new system was that only 400-500 places were left and that people were kept hanging on? If they'd used the available 6,000 places they should have been able to select more EOIs more quickly. Surely?

Evelynne

Lisa.C · I Like It Here Joined: 03 Jul 2004 Posts: 75

This is great news....but does anyone know what , lowering the benchmark means..i'm hoping it means that people with trades or degrees on the POL or OSL can apply without a job offer, as surely this is one of the biggest off putting factors in the whole emigration process to New Zealand, although it sounds like they will be targeting migrants from asia?? Confused

can anyone enlighten me on the meaning of all this, it's a bit unclear to me Rolling Eyes

Lisa

SoCal Gal

I'm very hopeful once again! Thankfully my temper didn't get the best of me and cause me to pull my application out a while back! And never did contact to stop payment on the credit card, LOL! So, hopefully this will be good news for a lot of us. We have decided to bump up our trip from November to first week in August to check out the weather in 'winter'. We have a brilliant idea that if you see a place at its 'worst' then you can truly know if you want to go! Keeping my fingers crossed for 115! P.S. anybody heard anything from Rich lately? Would love to know how it's going for him.
cool

Timbo · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 9:00 am Post subject:

Rich posted today. Make a few sandwiches and flask of coffee before you sit down to read it.

Caven · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:37 am Post subject:

John, thank-you very much for taking the time to post the above article, it will give hope to all that immigration policy is coming under fire from the right people.

Lisa, I don't think an effort will be pitched towards reversing the downturn in Asian applications as NZ is attempting to filter out those applicants who do not speak fluent English. I do not think it's racist, but based on the realistic prospects of employment for someone with limited English being remote.

Again, I can't see the stipulation regarding job offers being lifted either. I think the only signal we will see is a lowering of the points required. There are other visas which will facilitate job searching in NZ. Cheers.

Lisa.C · I Like It Here Joined: 03 Jul 2004 Posts: 75

Caven,

Thankyou so much for taking the time to respond to me.

Yes, i think we will still have to go on a visitor visa. It's difficult having two kids, to sell up here, move to the other end of the world without any security whatsoever, i know everyone says this is ok but it doesn't make it any less scary Eek

Cheers again.

Lisa

karltsmith · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:21 pm Post subject:

Hi Lisa,

Yes it's scary but we did it, as you know, but our philosophy was that we wanted to tie up all our own affairs/loose ends and not be in a position where we were trying to do this from 12,000 miles away...we thought that was more scary!........She'll be right....jump in an paddle!

Nutcase

Lisa.C · I Like It Here Joined: 03 Jul 2004 Posts: 75

Yes i think we are bonkers Nutcase

but that's exactly what we are going to have to do, i'l be paddling your way soon Laughing

Cheers Karl Nice One

Ramcp · Testing The Water Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 7

Well, I wish they had made this announcement last week or befor.

I turned 45 this week and my points dipped below 100.

This puts me out of the EOI and if I can get a job offer then I am ok

Ram

Lisa.C · I Like It Here Joined: 03 Jul 2004 Posts: 75

Hi Ram

If you have 95 points and then get a job offer, your points will be 145, there is a draw this week, it's possible it will be a selection level of 145, if that's the case you are there Nice One

Lisa

Jamie Smith

Hi all

This is not a surprise and no doubt offers some relief to many.

It's hard to see how they'll "lower the points" unless they mean to pick so many EOIs the points plummet.

On the other hand, with Dalziel's and the previous GM's departure, and with the GM being the Minister's "yes-man" for "rather decline than accept" mentality to keep Asians out and thereby shut up an opposition MP to keep the PM happy, perhaps the new Minister is accepting that the SMC is not easy to market and all the sudden and retrospective changes have hurt the market.

Only took 18 months to get that across....

I agree that they've short changed everyone by picking 6,000 fewer.

I really believe NZIS do not know how to count, I suspect there were more cases GS lapsed at the beginning of the year than has been admitted

I hope that instructions are now handed down from on high to "try to approve rather than decline", maybe NZIS can now see the trouble they've inflicted on the labour market and accept their responsibility to fix it.

Cheers all, hang in there.

as26408 · Testing The Water Joined: 29 Feb 2004 Posts: 6

thanx for giving nice and comprehensive advice and status.

However, in case the govt. plans to increase the number of incoming migrants how long it would take to clear the backlog of prospective persons applied under GSMC.

Now that SMC is in full swing, let us hope NZIS would succeed in their decision making exercise to let in more and more migrants.

May I ask if any one has any info about number of persons having got approved hitherto for PR under GSMC.

Informed persons can share for the viewers of this forum about this info.

thanx

thanx once again

[/b]

richsadams · Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 8:49 am Post subject: Immigration

Hi All

Thanks to John for posting the article! Clapping

There is certainly more hope now that it's become obvious to everyone else what we here knew to be the truth from day one! The system needs to be re-evaluated and sooner than later.

There are good people out there, with and without job offers, that should be given every chance to become good NZ citizens. Let's hope they move on things soon.

It’s interesting that the articles talks about “…migrants who speak good English…” when the correct way of saying it would be “migrants that speak English well”. I'd wager the author is a native Kiwi wouldn't you? Laughing