Immigration Policy Updates for Employers, Recruiters and HR Professionals - 9th February

Transcript from Video Above:

Kia Ora, people. 

To those of you who attended our webinar on Wed, thank you so much for attending and sticking to the end! There was a lot of information covered, and we understand that immigration is complex. So to be able to deliver this in bite-size pieces that people can understand does take quite a bit of work. So thank you for attending.

If you were unable to attend, or you missed the chance to register, especially if you are an employer, recruiter, or HR Professional, then I encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t actually miss any upcoming information or events that we have coming, as we do run these webinars bi-monthly.

Whether you were there or not, I want to do a quick short recap, because we covered so much information in an hour, of the three most important concepts that are going to be introduced in the immigration space.

1 - 2021 Resident Visa

The first one is the 2021 Resident Visa, which is a one-off resident visa. Phase 2 begins in under one month’s time, applications open on the 1st of March. Many employees may just accept the default 2021 Interim Visa that Immigration is going to grant them, if their current visas are going to expire. But It is really important that you as an employer understand what the implications may be. So we covered that in our webinar.

2 - Border Re-opening: Step 2 - Major Changes for Other Critical Workers

The second one is that the border is going to be reopening, and this is going to have a drastic impact on NZ businesses and employers.

Especially under Step 2, where we are going to see a number of changes taking place for Critical Workers - what this means, and the implications for employers. And then there’s other steps to follow. So it is really important to know what this means for your business and your planning.

3 - Mandatory Employer Accreditation & AEWV

The third one we covered was around mandatory employer accreditation, and AEWV which is a totally new regime that starts from the 4th of July this year. We did a survey last year and this year, and what we found consistently is that the complexity of immigration policy is the number one challenge that most recruiters and HR managers face. The applications for this new mandatory employer accreditation open up in less than three months, and there is a lot of information especially around the second gate, which is the job check.

So, if this is something that is going to impact you, make sure you are planned and you know what’s coming.

We have also put together a fantastic resource - all of our immigration advisers have come together to contribute to this - so if you do have any questions about this upcoming process, or if you want to hire a migrant, then you’ll want to get a copy of our eBook.

It tells you how you can hire migrant employees from the 4th of July, and how you as a business can plan. So, with that, thank you for reading/listening, and hopefully I’ll see you in our next webinar. Take care, people!