Huge surge in the number of work and residence visas approved in March

Property / news

More than 13,000 residence visas and 32,600 work visas approved in March, but student visa numbers bouncing along the bottom

19th Apr 22, 2:24pm by Greg Ninness

The number of work and residence visas being approved both surged to record highs in March.

The latest figures from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment show 32,607 work visas were approved in March this year, up from 12,579 in February and 12,864 in March last year. (Immigration NZ sits under the MBIE umbrella).

The previous record for any month of the year was 24,261 work visas approved in March 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, according to MBIE figures dating back to July 2011.

In percentage terms there has been an even bigger increase in the number of residence visas being approved, with 13,206 approvals issued in March.

March was the third month in a row that residence visa approvals have hit a fresh high, rising from 3684 in December last year to 10,806 in January this year, 11,793 in February and 13,206 in March.

The previous record for residence visa approvals in any month of the year was 5121 in May 2016.

That takes the total number of residence visas approved in the first quarter of this year to almost 36,000, compared to about 32,000 in the whole of last year.

It's likely that most of the new residence visas were approved under the special 2021 Residence Visa Scheme set up by the Government last year, to fast track residency for people who had already been in New Zealand on work visas for most of the previous three years.

However while the number of work and residence visas has ramped up considerably in the last few months, the number of student visas being approved continues to languish, with just 603 new (not renewals) student visas issued in March this year, down from the monthly peak of 3186 issued in March 2019.

MBIE estimates there were 36,570 people in NZ on student visas at the end of March, down form the peak of 86,115 in October 2019.

That means foreign student numbers have declined by almost 50,000 (-58%) in the last three and half years.

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46 Comments

by Zen20 | 19th Apr 22, 2:30pm 1650335408

here we go ... the money printers that went brrrr are now immigration pumps that go frrrr

by Advisor | 19th Apr 22, 2:44pm 1650336286

The idiots in Parliament believe our economy reeling with a cost-push inflation needs tens of thousands of new consumers each month!

Bring more competition for basic resources already in short-supply, what is the worse that could happen?

by RickStrauss | 19th Apr 22, 5:14pm 1650345252

Crikey...National and Labour have really melded together into one entity, it seems: Keep house prices up, wages down, immigration running hot.

by 2 Tooth Bora | 19th Apr 22, 3:07pm 1650337628

24,000 jobs available on trade me.

185,000 on the job seeker benefit.

But the good news is the additional visas can access our depleted/insufficient/failing infrastructure - health, housing & education etc..

by nktokyo | 19th Apr 22, 3:09pm 1650337766

Can you please find some engineers and builders in that list of 185,000?

All those who want to work, are able to work, and are qualified/competent are working.

We aren't going to lift our education standard by training people on the dole to teach high school maths.

by Advisor | 19th Apr 22, 3:24pm 1650338658

INZ has for a long time outsourced the responsibility of bringing engineers, builders and other skills to employers.

Surely these businesses have NZ's best interest in mind, and will not exploit migration policies just to get around training locals and to suppress local wages.

by 2 Tooth Bora | 19th Apr 22, 4:45pm 1650343551

You underestimate Kiwis Tokyo,

The trade me advertised jobs that are specialised are few and are repetitive, anyone can learn them, some roles only require minimal maths if any! English they have, compared to many immigrants. NZ Industry and Education should be coordinating with each other to ensure correct skill supply.

It's always best to invest in local people on a productive path of self development to improve the standard of their life, whanau and community; rather than burdening/costing the tax payer on the dole.

Immigrants taking Kiwis jobs is short term thinking - unemployment grows. Many immigrants end up on the job and sickness benefit, Council and Government housing and cause many problems - illegal activities violence/murder, laundering money, drugs etc..

by Pa1nter | 19th Apr 22, 7:28pm 1650353326

There was a day I felt this.

I took local people on, some that seemed like they needed a chance. Paid them 20% above market rate, helped them navigate things in their personal lives. The drop out and failure rate was through the roof.

I don't really know how to fix some of these social problems but most of them set in stone from the age of about 12, is the current understanding.

Employment gives better outcomes but jobs in and of themselves won't fix people.

There ain't enough capable workers to support the economy, open the gates

by Jarlaith | 19th Apr 22, 4:58pm 1650344310

You do realise they’re taxpayers right? If infrastructure and services aren’t keeping up, that’s a political choice.

by Squishy | 19th Apr 22, 2:56pm 1650337011

For all the talk of "build back better" here we are, doing the same things we've always done but hoping for different results.

by Carlos67 | 19th Apr 22, 3:08pm 1650337689

So predictable it's immigration by stealth. More consumers more houses it just keeps the failing economy proped up. Problem is nothing will save it this time.

by Davo36 | 19th Apr 22, 3:10pm 1650337840

And the floodgates are open once again! Didn't Labour say they were going to take a more circumspect approach to immigration? But then, what they say and what they do are 2 different things.

by nktokyo | 19th Apr 22, 3:14pm 1650338070

I believe this is the backlog of people who had applied and worked here for a while. There was a recent announcement.

by Zachary Smith | 19th Apr 22, 3:13pm 1650337980

The cavalry to the rescue?

by nktokyo | 19th Apr 22, 3:13pm 1650338027

We need more specialists in just about every field in New Zealand. Partly to cover for those who leave NZ or exit the workforce for other reasons and partly to cover the population we have now.

No country has the right to expect its people will just stay put like they owe some debt of labor to society. Young people, in particular, will want to get out there and work in fields that exist in other countries and people from other countries will want to get over here and work in fields that exist in ours.

In this case, most of the visas are solidifying the rights of people already working in New Zealand. Yet here we are, lining up to sound like a bunch of bigoted hermits in the comment section, again.

by singautim | 19th Apr 22, 3:25pm 1650338720

Of course NZ needs immigrants. But why does INZ approve three times as many per capita as most other OECD countries and has done so for decades. However those typical OECD countries have averaged better economic growth than NZ. We all know highly talented immigrants and rejoice they are here but honestly where are you most likely to meet an immigrant? Uber driver, checkout operator, fast food worker, etc. Maybe those Uber drivers are brain surgeons who prefer providing a taxi service. Just admit it - something is seriously wrong with NZs immigration policies. The govt talks 'skilled' but INZ mainly deliver low-paid workers undercutting low-skilled Kiwis. Our immigration policies is good for our rich but a kick in the teeth for our poor.

by Kjeldorian | 19th Apr 22, 3:35pm 1650339330

Nurses, aged care workers, builders..

We turn the tap on immigration because we don't educate our population properly. Instead we hand out NCEA participation awards.

by RickStrauss | 19th Apr 22, 5:16pm 1650345417

Absurd, really, that we allow young people to take on debt to train for jobs in hotels - for example. Fancy using taxpayer money and youth debt to enable hotels not to train staff from scratch, and to allow some value extractor to run a for-profit school to train hotel staff. Hotel staff.

Just one example of business underinvestment in training and student debt / taxpayer subsidies enabling unnecessary for-profit businesses.

by Jarlaith | 19th Apr 22, 7:09pm 1650352173

Si all the nurses leaving to work overseas are not educated?

by Kjeldorian | 20th Apr 22, 7:41am 1650397265

Oh, look at all these words that have been put into my mouth.

Some nurses are leaving because we don't pay them properly.

by singautim | 19th Apr 22, 3:14pm 1650338046

13,000 residence visas approved in a single month. For a typical OECD country that is pro-immigration about 3,000 per million population per year is usual. So NZ manages in a month what other countries take a year.

For example: in the UK using pre-Covid data: (2016) 66,024 and (2017) 67,806 new permanent residents. But the UK has a population of 67million roughly 13 times bigger than NZ.

by company of heroes | 19th Apr 22, 3:24pm 1650338661

The question is how many people will leave New Zealand once their resident visa approved? It will be interesting data to see.

by singautim | 19th Apr 22, 3:26pm 1650338792

Wait seven years for citizenship then leave.

by singautim | 19th Apr 22, 3:32pm 1650339120

Percentage of Kiwis foreign born: 27.4%. For Denmark it is 8%. South Korea is 2.3%.

Very high rates of immigration do have costs.

by nktokyo | 19th Apr 22, 4:07pm 1650341245

Interesting that you quote SK - https://www.dw.com/en/whats-behind-south-koreas-population-decline/a-60…

by singautim | 19th Apr 22, 7:29pm 1650353378

NZ is 2.5 times larger than South Korea, has a better climate too. But South Korea has a population of over 50 million. In the long run as the world's finite resources deplete, South Korea will benefit from a smaller population.

by Pa1nter | 19th Apr 22, 7:31pm 1650353484

Why would you compare NZ with countries that have been populated for thousands of years.

by singautim | 20th Apr 22, 9:19am 1650403171

Because thousands of years do not apply when reporting number alive currently.

by Pa1nter | 20th Apr 22, 6:14pm 1650435286

A much newer nation with a large amount of ethnic diversity is going to present differently than mature, culturally homogenous nations.

by Independent_Observer | 19th Apr 22, 3:42pm 1650339731

Who are the fools that would want to come to NZ to buy over priced houses and live in a low wage economy? And potentially at the point of falling asset prices?

Oddly it doesn't sound like the type of people you would want to attract....those that you do, would be smart enough to stay away.

by singautim | 19th Apr 22, 7:26pm 1650353214

Part of my family is from a 3rd world country with few benefits - poor health and education services and neither dole nor state pension. They are all happy to be in NZ although half would return to the place of their birth if they had NZ wages and welfare state. Our UK immigrants (OK that's me) can easily choose to return to the UK but immigrants from 3rd world countries are trapped here (not quite true since 3 of my extended family who have NZ citizenship are now working in Australia).

Determining a sensible immigration policy for NZ is not easy but at least we ought to try.

by Jarlaith | 20th Apr 22, 9:29am 1650403770

A lot of stereotyping.

by singautim | 20th Apr 22, 6:59pm 1650437993

Some of those stereotypes are family living with me (step-daughter, son-in-law and their Kiwi born daughter); another is my step-daughter and her two kids who live next next door. The third girl is a senior well paid civil servant who is single and is desperately trying to find work back in her country of origin. I'm sure you can find people with different attitudes. For example my neighbour about 10 years ago were a Turkish couple who stayed about 3 or 4 years; had two children in NZ and then choose to return to Istanbul.

'Stereotype: a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.' It all depends on how long the comment is - keeping it brief makes it a stereotype.

by Pa1nter | 19th Apr 22, 7:33pm 1650353600

If you'd seen enough of the world you'd know the answer to that.

It's like how people on Tropical Pacific Islands don't understand what foreigners find so great about their backwaters.

by live4ever | 19th Apr 22, 8:43pm 1650357805

For example well educated and high earning professional Europeans who are sick of what's happening on the continent. Especially now with inbound immigration into Europe through the roof from the east as well as the south.

by Small Kev | 19th Apr 22, 11:19pm 1650367172

“Who are the fools that would want to come to NZ to buy over priced houses and live in a low wage economy? ”

Many of those “fools” don’t come here for high wages but for life style. We see them everyday. They arrive with money in the bank, start up a small business or work part time at Miter10, drive expensive cars and buy one or two houses. They then advertise to their friends back home and they do the same.

by singautim | 20th Apr 22, 9:24am 1650403483

Sell your house in London and buy two in Auckland. I did it. The fact that NZ is a now a comparatively poor country compared to top western nations does make it easier for average people to arrive in NZ and instantly join the upper middle class. The truly exceptional will still be going to places where they can earn far more and compete in bigger markets. When Lorde became successful she didn't stay in Takapuna

by unaha-closp | 19th Apr 22, 4:40pm 1650343217

The government is trying their very hardest to make sure NZ wages do not increase out of control, these new workers will lessen wage growth inflation.

by Jarlaith | 19th Apr 22, 7:06pm 1650351967

They’re already here …

by 7jai | 19th Apr 22, 7:39pm 1650353998

As expected, demand to come to NZ has gone back up in record numbers. Migrants all want to NZ passport as it's the easiest and one of the safest. All will need homes to live in, so hope the housing supply continues to go up.

-7

by 7jai | 19th Apr 22, 7:53pm 1650354789

Is there a reason why Permanent Residency is permanent in NZ? In other countries like Canada, if you leave the country for more than "X" years, your PR gets revoked and you have to start from scratch again.

Why is NZ keeping it permanent?

-7

by Toye | 19th Apr 22, 9:27pm 1650360420

Everybody here conveniently forgot this is a one-off for people that are already here. Nobody is coming to NZ. In fact we lost about 13,000 people net so far this month alone.

by OJ@Aotearoa | 20th Apr 22, 10:41am 1650408082

Ys that is true, but don't set aside that some of them or the Majority have a family way back their home. so the numbers are still positive outcomes I reckon.

by OJ@Aotearoa | 20th Apr 22, 9:13am 1650402803

After 5 years, Half of these Numbers will end up in Aussie or other countries especially if they are Nurses and IT Pro. NZ is a stepping stone. Going back to the 08'-13' situation again. Tsk tsk tsk...

by Mannering | 20th Apr 22, 12:04pm 1650413084

A Kiwi who lived in and had a very successful career Japan for 36 years, I now drive ride share (UBER, Ola, Zoomy etc.) in Auckland and the overwhelming message I get from my passengers, especially HWMs (hated, white males) is that they are leaving, mainly for Australia, with the younger, better educated ones looking for any successful economy where their skills, talent and get up and go will be appreciated. I live in a heavily immigrant populated area in Eastern Auckland and during the recent school holidays picked up quite a few young male Asian high school/university students and in conversations during the ensuing long rides found out they were all planning to leave NZ ASAP and they asked me what I thought were the best destinations. Their main reasons for leaving were that "NZ is so childish", NZ women and a lack of opportunity for those who are intellectually and financially ambitious. Another group are young educated IT and financial services lads.Several of the former told me that in recent job interviews the first question that they are asked was, "And what pronoun should we use with you."

by singautim | 20th Apr 22, 7:02pm 1650438170

So the two stereotypes would be the good ones leave and the less good stay.