Things you can do to improve your chances of success

Even if you are not ready right now to submit an application, now is always a good time to find out what you can do to srengthen your future application and be ready.

Partnership visas

Visa applications under partnership categories that fail, do so because even though applicants do infact meet the legal criteria, many people are not sure how to clearly prove so, and INZ tend to use this as leverage to decline the visa. It is not enough to just be in a genuine relationship, you have to prove and convince the immigration officer that you are.

Now is the time to look at the evidence that you are compliling and think about what you are lacking, if the documents you have actually prove your relationship or are just merely pieces of paper. Do you need to start collecting more, what can you do to collect genuine and useful documents? These are all things that you can think about more.

Residence visas

One of the big things for many people is English, and it can take time to improve your English score. starting early may be just the opportunity you need to make an impossible seeming application possible. Other ways for residence applicants are to look at the quality of your supporting documentation. A residence application requires a much higher degree of proof than a work visa application, so this may be a good time to contact people and see if you can get stronger documents for this.

Work visas

Are you mainting a good relationship with your employer? It might be helpful to show just how valuable you are in keeping the business going. Be a little flexible with your employer's requests, but make sure than any changes you agree to are still within the bounds of NZ employment law and immigration law. You cannot agree to change your job or job location without adjusting your visa conditions for this. You also can't agree to be paid less than market rate and definitely not less than minimum wage. Some changes will need a new visa, but if this is good for everyone, then perhaps applying for new visa would be a good way to move forward together.

Student visas

use the time away from school to improve your English or subject knowledge. With less time needed for commuting, this gives your more time available to study. if your classes are still run online, spend some time reviewing your lessons, etc. If you are studying so that you can work later through post study work instructions, it may be useful to put some more time in investigating future work pathways as well.

"Overall, remember that the only way to actually enhance your chances of success are to make informed decisions and not act randomly. Acting without professional advice can mean that your result comes down to luck. If you don't really know how to plan your visa pathway, then be sure to as a professional".

INZ FAQ sent with Licensed Immigration Advisers and lawyers update 07/05/2020

Exceptions for people to travel to NZ

My migrant employee was on holiday overseas when the border was closed and didn’t get back. How soon will they be able to return?

The Government’s current border restrictions mean that people on temporary visas who are currently offshore are not able to come back to New Zealand unless they meet the strict border exception criteria. Individuals who believe they meet the exceptions criteria need to submit a request for an exception to the border restrictions. If the circumstances are considered exceptional and justify travel to New Zealand for a critical purpose, individuals will be invited to apply for a visitor visa, or to vary their existing visa to allow them to travel.

What is the process for holders of work visas who are currently offshore to return to New Zealand?

The New Zealand border is currently closed to almost all travellers to help stop the spread of COVID-19. However the New Zealand government acknowledges that there may be extremely limited circumstances where it is appropriate for a person who is not exempt from the border restrictions to travel to New Zealand. 

Border restrictions and future migrant employment

After the lockdown period is over how soon will we be able to employ migrant labour again from overseas?

No decisions have been made by the Government on when the border restrictions will be lifted, but this is unlikely to happen at the same time that lockdown is lifted.

Any decision made in regards to employing migrant labour in the future will need to take into account the wider impacts of COVID-19, including any changes to the labour market.

In the short term employers should consider alternative solutions, for example employing someone already currently in New Zealand.

Should I still be interviewing and planning/recruiting for new migrants to come out in July / August?

No decisions have been made by the Government on when the border restrictions will be lifted, but this is unlikely to happen at the same time that lockdown is lifted.

Any decision made in regards to employing migrant labour in the future will need to take into account the wider impacts of COVID-19, including any changes to the labour market. In the short term employers should consider alternative solutions, for example employing someone already currently in New Zealand.

My employee went overseas and now cannot return for an unknown period of time. His work Visa is to expire in June. Can we promise him his job will be here when he returns? What do we do in the meantime?

Example case: Our worker is now stuck in the Philippines. He is due to start back on the 4th of April but given the current situation that is unlikely.

The New Zealand border is currently closed to almost all travellers to help stop the spread of COVID-19. However the New Zealand government acknowledges that there may be extremely limited circumstances where it is appropriate for a person who is not exempt from the border restrictions to travel to New Zealand. 

All individuals entering New Zealand will be subject to quarantine or isolation.

You may need to think about alternative options, for example employing someone currently in NZ who is either a New Zealand citizen/resident or has a current visa with appropriate work rights.

Visa flexibility

I have a worker on a temporary work visa transferring from another employer to me and who is due to start now. Can they start working for me at the end of the lockdown period if it is not processed by INZ in time?

No. Work visa holders may only work for the employer(s) specified in their visa conditions until a Variation of Conditions or new visa has been granted.

My employer and I have agreed to reduced hours and / or reduced pay during the lockdown. What do I need to do now to ensure that I am not in breach of my visa?

INZ and other Government agencies involved in the COVID-19 response are engaging regularly with employers and other stakeholders and listening to their concerns. The Government is looking at options for temporary work visa holders who have been affected by COVID-19 and will make decisions as soon as possible. However, the priority at the moment is on ensuring the continuation of essential services. 

We are unable to lodge a work visa application with the Skills Match Report because WINZ is closed. Will INZ waive this requirement?

This will be on a case by case basis, and only in exceptional circumstances.   You can still apply for a work visa and include an explanation noting you are currently unable to obtain a Skills Match Report.

My employer is pressuring me to take a paycut. I hold a work to residence work visa. This will take me below the minimum base salary requirement. Will it impact my eligibility for residence?

What if this is due to the 80% govt subsidy?

INZ and other Government agencies involved in the COVID-19 response are engaging regularly with employers and other stakeholders and listening to their concerns. The Government is looking at options for temporary work visa holders who have been affected by COVID-19 and will make decisions as soon as possible. However, the priority at the moment is on ensuring the continuation of essential services. To be granted residence, the applicant would need to have employment that meets immigration instructions. INZ has no discretion in terms of residence instructions.

Variation of conditions for essential workers temporary visa holders

I am an essential worker Nurse – I hold a work visa to work as a nurse during the week but I would like to help the COVID-19 response in NZ by working another healthcare related job in the weekends. Can I submit VOC to do this?

I have an application for a Variation of Conditions in process to commence work for a new employer. I am unable to work for my old employer and am facing financial strain due to lack of income. Is there any process for consideration of priority processing based on humanitarian factors rather than essential services only?

INZ and other Government agencies involved in the COVID-19 response are engaging regularly with employers and other stakeholders and listening to their concerns. The Government is looking at options for temporary work visa holders who have been affected by COVID-19 and will make decisions as soon as possible. However, priority at the moment is on ensuring the continuation of essential services.  

Extensions to visas under Epidemic Management Notice

Were South Island Contribution Visas extended under the Epidemic Management Notice?

Yes. Holders of a work, student, visitor, limited or interim visa with an expiry date of 2 April to 9 July 2020 inclusive who were in New Zealand on 2 April 2020 will have had their visa automatically extended to 25 September 2020. If you did not receive an email confirming your visa was extended, please use the Visa Verification Service to confirm.

Visas were automatically extended if they expired between 2 April and 9 July 2020 but what happens if the visa expires after that?

The worker will need to either depart or apply for a further visa closer to the time of expiry.

Other

What about temporary migrants who want to go home but are stuck here?

What about people on student visas whose visa was automatically extended but they are no longer studying? Is their student visa still valid?

Students whose visa had an expiry date of 2 April to 9 July 2020 inclusive, and who were in New Zealand on 2 April 2020, had their visa automatically extended to 25 September 2020. Their visa conditions remain the same as before the visa was extended.

Those who are already employed in an essential services role will be able to work longer hours while New Zealand remains in Alert Level 3 or 4 and for six weeks following. Their employer must make a request to vary the visa conditions. We have also announced changes specifically for those student visa holders working in supermarkets and the healthcare sector to undertake more employment than they were able to previously. 

We understand that some student visa holders may have had their student visa extended automatically but may have finished their course of study and do not intend to undertake any further studies. Students who no longer wish to study in New Zealand should notify their education provider as soon as they are able to. Their education provider will in turn notify INZ on the student’s behalf. We are considering options for students in this circumstance and will provide more information as it is available.

Students who have finished their course of study can make plans to return home where possible.

Are there any plans to allow people already in New Zealand on visitor visas to work while they are stuck here?

People who come to New Zealand temporarily as tourists are required to have enough money to maintain themselves in New Zealand and pay for their return flights home. These requirements remain in place; therefore there has been no consideration of allowing visitor visa holders to work. Short term visitor visa holders should seek assistance from the Embassy or Consulate and/or look into options for returning home if they are unable to support themselves while remaining in New Zealand. Individuals who are currently in New Zealand on a visitor visa and wish to work while they are here, need to apply for and be granted a work visa to be legally able to work in New Zealand.

INZ understands there are a number of temporary work visa holders whose work has been affected by the current COVID-19 situation and we are currently looking at further options for these individuals and will make decisions as soon as possible. However, the priority at the moment is on ensuring the continuation of essential services.  Some changes have already been made for those work visa holders already employed in essential services. 

My migrant worker was due to finish in April and now can’t go home. They are living in our accommodation and have nowhere to go. I need the house for my new workers. What should we do?

Foreign nationals who are not currently employed or are experiencing any difficulties should talk to their Consulate or Embassy for assistance, especially regarding repatriation flights. 

Support to self-isolate is available for those in particular hardship through the Temporary Accommodation Service and local Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Groups.

I am on a visa with work conditions and am currently unable to return to New Zealand due to the current travel restrictions. Is my employer eligible to receive the wage subsidy even though I am not in New Zealand and pay me my wages? What if my work visa expires whilst I am overseas?

You should contact the Ministry of Social Development for enquiries relating to INZ to the Wage Subsidy Scheme.

If your work visa expires whilst overseas, you will need to apply for a new work visa.

What will immigration in New Zealand look like next?

In short no one knows yet (at the time of writing), not even the New Zealand Government. We have had meetings and discussions on this subject and until the Government tells INZ exactly what they want to happen then immigration policy is a bit uncertain. 

At this stage we have to assume that it is business as usual within the restrictions we find ourselves in

All applications made must be assessed under the immigration instructions current at the time of lodgement. This means that except for some very special cases, if you meet the criteria for a visa now, and you lodge that application, even if the law changes later and you no longer meet the new criteria, INZ must assess your application under the old criteria (that you meet) and approve the visa if you have clearly proved that it should be approved. This is important because it is highly likely that criteria will change in response to the economic situation after the pandemic, so it may be best for many people to put in an application sooner rather than later.

Putting in an early application is probably good, but timing is still important, you still need to prove that you meet the criteria for the visa. This is a big point because if you do actually meet the criteria, but put in a substandard application, then it makes it much easier for INZ to decline the application later. Especially if policy changes and INZ is under pressure to decline applications, insisting that you met the criteria at the time of application is only going to work if you have proven this beyond reasonable doubt.

What is likely to change?

By conversations we have had, it seems likely that things will get tougher overall. This makes sense as most predictions are picking unemployment to rise and the borders to remain closed for some time. Kiwis will come first, so immigration overall is probably going to become more controlled and not less. Work visas and residence visas are probably going to get more strictly assessed, quota type visas probably will have their quotas reduced. The visas that will, likely remain unchanged are student, visitor and investment / business category visas. However visitor visas will most likely be tougher on bona fide travellers as there will be more people wanting to flee to New Zealand as the global situation gets worse.

INZ are assessing all of these factors and internal policies will reflect their modelling of such issues. One unknown is how partnership visas will change because this is relatively removed from economic factors, but one of the biggest issues with partnership visas is bona fide. Will there be an increase in fake relationships of people wanting an easy way to escape from the Covid-19 and economic situation in their home country to the relative safety of New Zealand? I think INZ may think that this is likely, so proving beyond reasonable doubt that your relationship is genuine will become even more important than it already is. 

What should you do?

I think that if you are in a situation to start applying for residence and want to do so, then you should start this process as soon as possible so you don’t get locked out. if you don't meet the criteria, or are not sure, then get professional advice and find out quickly what you need to do. If you are near the beginning of your immigration pathway and are still looking at 2 or 3 years before you will be able to meet the criteria to apply for residence, then the best thing is to look at how you can strengthen your situation. If you are studying now, is your course going to provide you with skilled employment in skills shortage areas? if not, you may need to reassess and change things. In general the higher skilled jobs will still experience skills shortages, so these are the positions that will be unable to be filled by recently unemployed Kiwis and the positions that will be more likely to be approved for work visas. 

There will be ways forward, but it is very likely to become tougher for everyone. 

Come to work in New Zealand

There are many people who want to come to work or live in New Zealand, so what is the first step? We often get enquiries from people overseas who really want to live permanently in NZ. More often than not the first step involves finding a job or job offer before you can apply for a visa. To come to NZ or to stay in NZ you will need a visa, and to get a work visa or residence from work, then you need a job to base the visa on first. The reason why the job needs to come first is that depending on the job, the conditions and duration, or even possibility of getting the visa will be different. No job means no visa, a highly skilled job means you are more likely to get a visa and have better conditions.

Basic conditions for the type of job you need

The 2 absolute conditions of the job you need to find are that it is:

• Skilled work = work that you need a qualification or at least 3 years' work experience to do
• Matches your qualifications and / or work experience

However, these are only the basic conditions for immigration, the conditions for actually being able to be hired may be different. In general there are jobs that are more suitable for immigration purposes and those that are generally less suitable. Less suitable doesn't mean that it would be impossible to succeed, it just means that it is less likely to succeed.

To improve your chances of success (in addition to the 2 conditions above), the following very general points are important to consider:

• You need to have good English - specifically communication skills
• trade jobs, or jobs with tangible results have a better chance of success - carpenter, mechanic, bricklayer, hairdresser, etc
• Highly skilled jobs are only useful if you can get NZ registration - Doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher, etc
• office type jobs and management level jobs generally go to New Zealanders  

look for the job yourself

Kiwi employers will think much better of you if you apply for the job and communicate with them directly, rather than going through a friend or someone else. Employers want to know that job applicants are qualified and experienced of course, but they also want to know that they are motivated, communicative, can use English well enough, are not shy, etc. Not looking for a job yourself can send the wrong mesage, and opportunities may disappear than would otherwise have gone well.

Jobs are often advertised on https://www.trademe.co.nz/jobs or on https://www.seek.co.nz/ 

Study pathway

If you find that your qualifications or skills are not in demand, or you just keep getting rejected because you don't have a visa, then a study pathway is usually the other best option. You might find that if you come to NZ to study and update your skills with a NZ qualification this can help to find a job. Along with the new qualification, the other most beneficial part of this pathway is that if you have work rights on your student visa you can get a part time job in your chosen industry, which can then lead to a full time job when you finsih studying.

many people follow this pathway, but you need to be careful that:

• The school you study at is reputable and not one that is known to be dodgy
• you can actually get work conditions on your student visa and post study work visa eligibility from your chosen study pathway 
• The qualification enhances your work experience and current qualifications

How to plan around Covid-19 impacts

New Zealand's response to the Covid-19 pandemic can be seen to be strong and clear. It is predictable that things in immigration won't be back to normal for some time. This means that if you intend to stay in New Zealand or come to New Zealand that you will need to take this into consideration. How the Government places restrictions on entry or how much INZ and industry will be able to operate as usual will have effects. If you understand these effects and act accordingly, then there is no reason why things won't go well.

There will be little flexibility

If the border is closed to all but essential workers, then however much you really want to come to NZ, you will just need to wait. When there are exceptions for humanitarian reasons or for essential workers, this has a high threshold. Just because you really want to come back to NZ to keep working, does not mean that you meet this threshold. Having to continue paying rent for your flat in NZ or not being able to come back to be with your spouse, etc is hard and very stressful, but it still does not meet the threshold. While we empathize with these kinds of situations, we aim to do the best for our clients by advising them when not to spend money on unnecessary applications as much as when it is good to try for an application.

Start planning early

With restrictions in place it may mean that you can't come to NZ right away, or you can't change jobs right away and so on. But think about what you can do. Is this time best used to improve your English for example? if you are thinking of applying for residence through the SMC you will need a good English score. If your English is just average now, you can spend the lockdown studying and then when things are ready to go again, you will come out ahead.

This is the same with any big application preparation. There are usually a lot more necessary documents than most people realise, but if you start your application sooner, it will give us time to prepare and have things ready to go much sooner. Partnership applications are a good example of this because most people do very little preparation and the applications take much longer or run into more problems because of this. But during the lockdown there is quite a lot of partnership evidence that can be gathered and generated if you know what to do.

Industry changes

After the lockdown there will definitely be economic impacts with more unemployment than before. One response from INZ will definitely be a tougher stance on work visas and proving that there are no New Zealanders available for the work before hiring migrant workers. This may mean that the skills shortage lists will be revised, it may mean that hiring migrant workers will become much more difficult than before. We are expecting that there will be more declines and PPIs about these points than before. 

Be prepared

There will still be ways forward for those who work at it. Immigration to NZ has been becoming more difficult in recent times in any case, and this will most likely continue. The days where almost anyone could get residence with little effort are long past anyway, so it is best to think of it as a continuation of this pattern and do what you need to do to succeed.