New Zealand has announced that it is making immediate changes to its employment visa programme after near-record migration in 2023 that it said was “unsustainable”.
According to Reuters, the changes include measures such as introducing English-language requirements for low-skilled jobs and setting a minimum skills and work experience threshold for most employer work visas.
The maximum continuous stay for most low-skilled roles will also be reduced to three years from five years.
“The government is focused on attracting and retaining the highly skilled migrants such as secondary teachers, where there is a skill shortage,” Immigration Minister Erica Stanford said in a statement.
“At the same time, we need to ensure that New Zealanders are put to the front of the line for jobs where there are no skills shortages.”
In 2023, a near-record 173,000 people migrated to New Zealand.
New Zealand, which has a population of about 5.1 million, has seen a rapid growth in its migrant numbers since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, raising concerns in 2023 that it was fanning inflation.
Neighbouring Australia, which has also seen a big jump in migrants, has said it would halve its migrant intake over the next two years.
