More than 16,000 people arrived in NZ on work visas in February

Economy / news

More than 36,000 people arrived in New Zealand on work visas in the first two months of this year

13th Mar 24, 1:43pm by Greg Ninness

Another 16,020 people arrived in New Zealand on work visas in February, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, which incorporates Immigration NZ.

That number was down 10.4% from the 17,874 people who arrived on work visas in February last year, but up hugely on the 285 that arrived in February 2022 when pandemic travel restrictions were still in place.

In the first two months of 2024, 36,219 people have arrived on work visas, compared to 34,644 in the first two months of last year, but that's still well below pre-Covid levels when 50,658 people arrived on work visas in the first two months of 2019.

The latest arrivals pushed the total number of people in NZ on work visas up to 194,181 at the end of February, and up by 63,252 (+48.3%) compared to February last year.

That's still below the peak of 222,054 people who were in NZ on work visas at the end of March 2020, although that figure tends to understate the affect that work visa inflows have had on total population numbers.

That's because the Government introduced the 2021 Resident Visa Scheme, which has since closed, allowing people who had already been in NZ on work visas for at least three years to obtain a fast-tracked residence visa.

So far just over 135,000 people have transferred from work to residence visas under the scheme, and when those numbers are taken into account, along with the people in the country on work visas, it has pushed NZ's population up by almost 330,000.

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35 Comments

by Mr Frank | 13th Mar 24, 1:56pm 1710291384

Do we have enough jobs for these new arrivals?

by tomjones_04 | 13th Mar 24, 1:59pm 1710291587

You don't think they'd seriously measure something like this do you? Houses, jobs, infrastructure...do we have enough?... who knows...makes house prices go up...that's all that matters really.

by Mr Frank | 13th Mar 24, 2:02pm 1710291756

I am seriously, job listings are dropping like a stone... and yet more people are arriving with jobs.

by rastus1 | 14th Mar 24, 9:05am 1710360340

Easy pezzy. Form a company, advertise briefly for some obscure role, then get your family/cousie from country X to apply with their BS CV. Then create the inflated salary that gets booked but never paid out.

No one is policing this stuff.

by Nzdan | 14th Mar 24, 12:51pm 1710373889

Data sharing between IRD and INZ? I mean, wouldn't an IRD number be one of the things an immigrant would need to qualify which then becomes the unique ID?

I suppose if you wanted to keep the charade up you'd just deposit the equivalent PAYE to IRD each month.

by rastus1 | 14th Mar 24, 1:09pm 1710374949

......you think they have staff to manually deal with data matches? Even IF they did it.

by JustAnOpinion | 13th Mar 24, 2:12pm 1710292323

Let's stop pretending we have any interest in controlling this. The limit is the number of planes into the country.

by dumbthoughts | 13th Mar 24, 2:40pm 1710294025

Yep at this rate the increasingly reasonable and well-founded fear of stepping onto a Boeing 'Screamliner' or 737 (Death) Max will do more to control immigration levels than any government policy.

by K.W. | 13th Mar 24, 2:52pm 1710294756

Sure. There will be convenience stores, liquor stores, takeaway places, restaurants, Uber cars, and vape shops springing up on every street corner. All staffed by immigrants who pay their wages back to their employer's overseas bank account for the duration of their "pathway to residency" process.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018929732/immigratio…

by Advisor | 13th Mar 24, 3:59pm 1710298746

Inflation is going nowhere as low skilled immigration continues alongside high-skilled emigration.

We will be doomed to pay increasingly more simply to keep our heads above water (council rates, energy prices, road taxes, healthcare and education spending, etc.) with no one to do the smart work in building and maintaining all of that.

by rastus1 | 14th Mar 24, 9:10am 1710360640

Yep. Another highly trained professional leaving partners work place today. This time an anesthetist. In place another truckload of inadequately trained non English speaking nurses arrive.

Heaps of foreign 'nurses' now applying for nursing jobs. Much reluctance in employing them. Some have absolutely no idea what they are doing and are a burden on the 'real' nurses who have to cover. And so the good ones head to Aussie in frustration.

by tothepoint | 13th Mar 24, 5:54pm 1710305655

Have we homes for all these people??

TTP

by FJP | 14th Mar 24, 5:35am 1710347736

I'm constantly surprised by the level of ignorance. It seems like you don't understand how a work visa works based on that statement.

by MikeM | 14th Mar 24, 7:12am 1710353536

Young travelers don't need a job offer to obtain a work visa if that's what you're getting at.

by The_Golem | 13th Mar 24, 2:10pm 1710292240

That's an ugly way to keep wages down while pumping up the price of pretty well everything else. We seem to be incapable of learning anything.

by Crazy Horse | 13th Mar 24, 2:15pm 1710292544

Great ! ....more fodder for keeping wages/salaries down and rents up ....NZ is surely a greedy, short sighted little country.

I hope ALL the arrivals either have at least a professional/technical qualification or substantial capital for a business - sarc ! .....while all immigrants should not be allowed a NZ Passport for at least 15 years, as that would weed out those using NZ, as just a stepping stone to other countries. Then we would see who TRULY wants to come here - or not ???

The mantra is house prices must stay up AT ALL COSTS !

NZ - selling itself short for 50 years ....

by tomjones_04 | 13th Mar 24, 4:29pm 1710300582

NZ is surely a greedy, short sighted little country. .... I've been saying it for years... great comment

by smudge1 | 13th Mar 24, 2:21pm 1710292881

And none of them have proper licences (yes, I am generalizing) and they all want cars. But can't due to licence conditions.

by Mr Frank | 13th Mar 24, 2:21pm 1710292888

You guys are addicted to linking everything to house prices.

by J.C. | 13th Mar 24, 3:00pm 1710295258

Directly and indirectly it is linked to house prices. Because our financial resources are allocated to the Ponzi, we need cheap labor to run the economy. We don't have competitive productive sectors and businesses. Cheap labor alleviates that to some extent.

by M0ralHazard | 14th Mar 24, 8:12am 1710357175

Well, house prices are pretty much our entire economy in NZ

by Baywatch | 13th Mar 24, 2:28pm 1710293318

Glad the new government are cracking down on immigration and we now on the right track.

by HouseMouse | 13th Mar 24, 3:01pm 1710295272

Lol

by JustAnOpinion | 13th Mar 24, 4:16pm 1710299788

lol poor Erica, what a hospital pass!!! I can see her walking into the Immigration Department and observing...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b-DsPazO9c

by Nzdan | 13th Mar 24, 3:35pm 1710297322

Not sure they campaigned on reducing immigration? I don't think any political party will get much traction with reducing immigration unless they want to fully restructure Immigration NZ (incl headcount reduction).

In the mean time, we're stuck with unelected bureaucracy with goals and purpose that are at odds with Political ideology. Immigration NZ aren't employed to not process visa applications. Do we set up immigration quotas, where for 6 months of the year INZ are busy until they exhaust the quotas, and then sit around for 6 months?

by Baywatch | 13th Mar 24, 4:57pm 1710302240

The National Party has put forward a proposal to revert to the previous immigration target of 45,000 to 50,000 people annually....and you believed that? lol

by Nzdan | 13th Mar 24, 4:59pm 1710302398

I don't believe for a second that any political party will achieve that deliberately unless they fully restructure INZ with mass redundancies and a completely new direction.

Or by accident.

by wingman | 13th Mar 24, 5:22pm 1710303764

The Labour Govt let 178,000 immigrants into NZ in one year alone. And they claim to ostensibly care about the 'working classes'. And of course 'global warming'.

If you guys want to build a new house, you're welcome to use the cheap new arrivals, but I won't be.

What a joke.

by Baywatch | 13th Mar 24, 6:06pm 1710306370

In the first two months of 2024, 36,219 people have arrived on work visas, compared to 34,644 in the first two months of last year

Looks like your team are going to beat Labour this year Wingman?

by Matt_B | 13th Mar 24, 9:48pm 1710319685

As expected as National hasn't changed any immigration or visa settings

Migration and travel stats out tomorrow

by nicko252 | 14th Mar 24, 4:02am 1710342134

From memory it was about 120k. Not sure where you got that figure?

by singautim | 13th Mar 24, 10:26pm 1710321964

When 50,000 was the number of permanent residenct granted it was over triple the OECD average. Strangely OECD countries with long term low rates of adding permenent residents are wealthier than us and pulling away: Norway, Denmark, South Jorea, Japan. Do our politicians confuse GDP and GDP per capita.

by Murray Falconer | 14th Mar 24, 1:38am 1710333507

Strangely...

More like: 'As expected...'

by Casual Observer | 13th Mar 24, 10:57pm 1710323821

Work visa applicants have up to 12 months to arrive in NZ after their visa is issued, so anyone arriving now could have been issued their visa up to 12mths ago.

by singautim | 14th Mar 24, 9:27am 1710361671

Could but unusual. Often Europeans on their OE visit Australia first so some would be delayed. This is work for a statistician