Navigating New Zealand's Evolving Immigration System: Insights for the Veterinary Industry and Beyond

Julie South [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Veterinary Voices. This is episode 211. 211 and I'm your show host, Julie South. With listeners tuning in from over 1400 cities worldwide, veterinary Voices celebrates all that's great about working in New Zealand's veterinary industry. I'd love to hear where you're listening from right now, so please feel free to share your location with me at VeterinaryVoices NZ. It's also at VeterinaryVoices NZ where you can find back copies and back issues of the podcast as well. This show is brought to you by vetstaff, New Zealand's only recruitment agency on the ground in New Zealand specialising in helping veterinary professionals find jobs they're excited about going to on Monday mornings in Kiwi vet clinics. Vetstaff Co NZ this week just gone Lizzie from Vet Clinic Jobs and myself and me.

Julie South [00:01:06]:
I, me, myself and I had a great time at the WINTEC Careers Expo in Hamilton. This was just for vet nurses and Vet Nurse Tech students. Year ones and year twos. We were there for the afternoon showing them how to drive Vet clinic jobs, the job board just for veterinary professionals. By the time this episode goes to air, I'll have spent some more time at Wintec helping the same students with job interview questions, CV writing and some Q and A. And I'm looking forward to it. There's something special and exciting and I'm sure you feel this as well when you get students in your clinic for placement. There's something really special and exciting about being around professionals who are excited about working in New Zealand's veterinary industry.

Julie South [00:01:55]:
Today on Veterinary Voices, we're catching up again with Catherine Neazor Brady of Neazor Brady Licensed Immigration Consultants so she can bring us up to date with the latest changes Immigration New Zealand has made since she and I last chatted. 

Catherine Neazor Brady is a New Zealand licensed Immigration advisor. She has over 20 years experience working with the New Zealand employers in the immigration and the HR space. As a partner at NESA Brady, Catherine specialises in providing international recruitment, immigration and resettlement services to New Zealand employers. Catherine started her HR career in Paris at the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Since then, Catherine's held multiple HR roles in New Zealand, including several senior ones and management positions in government departments. In 2003, Catherine and her husband Connor set up their HR and immigration consultancy. They and their team are fully focused on helping New Zealand employers find, retain and support migrant workers.

Julie South [00:03:03]:
Since Catherine and I last caught up, there have been quite a few changes. So this is back in September, all of which Affect and impact Kiwi vet clinics that employ overseas migrants. Those who employ overseas migrants, either on a skilled migrant visa or an accredited employer work visa. And now listen up. Maybe a partnership visa as well. If you haven't listened to Katherine's first two episodes where she talks about some of the potholes that some clinics, some employers fall into when they attempt to do their own job, check stuff, stuff in inverted quotes, then go back and listen because she talks about some more of those potholes today. You're listening back for episodes 203 and 204. I'll put the direct links to those in the show notes for you to click straight up.

Julie South [00:03:57]:
We join the conversation here where I asked Catherine, what changes Immigration New Zealand has, has made that significantly affect veterinary professionals who require a visa of some kind to work here?

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:04:15]:
We are starting to see the benefit of some of the behind the scenes processing changes coming through. I think we talked last time about the fact that there's been exploitation and fraudulent applications and the government has started to really rigorously check applications to the point that the system nearly ground to a halt. So it was taking five to six months from beginning to end for an employer to get accreditation through to having a work visa come out. They haven't relaxed the fact that they're doing checks, but what they've started doing is sorting the starfed immigration into operational centres so that they're familiar, they become familiar with the industry and the types of employers and employment conditions that they're working with. So rather than having a different case officer every time, picking it up and having to learn everything about that type of employment from scratch, they already have existing knowledge. And so we are seeing and they've made some decisions around prioritising work visas according to the skilled level. So if you're in a skilled level one job, which is a vet or a green list role, which again applies to vets, but sadly not vet nurses, your job check and your visa application will be prioritised. And so we're seeing job checks in those categories coming through within a couple of weeks.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:05:32]:
And even for people who are not on the greenlist or skill level one, I've recently had some work visas approved within two weeks when it was taking up to three months.

Julie South [00:05:41]:
I'm going to jump in here. We vet staff has a vet nurse that has been waiting, gosh, I don't know, three months. It's multiple months.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:05:57]:
Yes.

Julie South [00:05:58]:
Can we see something? You know, she's a vet nurse, so unfortunately she's not greenlisted. Can we see some movement start to happen there.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:06:08]:
Do you think the average processing time for the job checks has been 11 to 12 weeks over the last few months. I'm not sure how much faster the job check process is going to get for people in the vet nurse level. One thing I would say is that immigration has been feeding information back to licensed immigration advisers to say that around half of the applications that they're getting are incomplete, the advertising wasn't done correctly or there's an issue with the paying conditions. And so if it's waiting for quite a long time to get a case officer and then they go back in these problems, that spins out the processing time. And if it's the case that the advertising wasn't done correctly for immigration requirements, they actually will not approve the job check and the employer would need to start again.

Julie South [00:06:58]:
And that's another reason to use for practice managers, HR managers. If you're listening to this, if you're a clinic diying your own applications, this is a reason to use a licensed immigration consultant.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:07:17]:
Yes, I would agree.

Julie South [00:07:22]:
Got the fraudulent applications and Immigration New Zealand doing their bit to clamp down on those. What else has been happening?

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:07:32]:
Obviously the fee increase came into effect on the 1st of October, so there was a big surge in people applying for visas before the fee increase came in. There's been a dramatic drop in application numbers. So I was just reading some information this morning going back several months. There were between two and a half and 4,000 work visa applications a month and that dropped to 800 in the month after the fee increase. So we can expect that there might have been a little bulge of things slowing down at immigration because so many applications came in all at once. But as I said, we've got some applications that have been quickly. So I think there might be some triage going on behind the scenes and they're having a first look to see is that a complete application? If it is, we'll do that one more quickly then where it's one that we might have to go back and ask for more information.

Julie South [00:08:26]:
I just want to interrupt this chat for a very brief moment to share something important for clinics that are doing their own recruitment, a better way for employers and employees to connect direct with each other. Vetclinicjobs.com youm probably already know and agree that traditional recruitment methods just aren't cutting it anymore, which means that a different approach is necessary. If you're an employer who wants to work direct with job applicants, or you're a job applicant, a job seeker who wants to work direct with the employer, in other words, no recruitment agency is involved. Then the job needs to be advertised and listed on vet clinic jobs. The search functionality is powerful. Want to work with a corporate? That's great. Now you can narrow your search down to just corporate jobs. Want to work only at an independently owned clinic? Fantastic.

Julie South [00:09:23]:
Likewise, you can narrow your search down to owner operated clinics as well. At just 99 New Zealand dollars per job per month, vet clinic jobs is totally, absolutely 100% affordable. So give your job listings the oomph that they need@vetclinicjobs.com now let's get back to today's show.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:09:49]:
We've also got some information about the residence applications. So the skilled migrant category so far has not been a huge, huge category in terms of applications, but that's people that are applying for residence which would apply to your vet nurses. And in the straight to residence category, there have been around 6,300 applications and around 6,000 of those have been decided and there's a 95% approval rate on those. I guess the benefit being for people who can make a straight to residence application, that they're focusing on the job offer and the person's qualifications and we're not needing to provide evidence of work history and things like that. In the other categories where people have to provide evidence of a certain amount of work experience. In New Zealand, there's quite a lot of areas, apparently people aren't submitting enough evidence or not over a long enough time period.

Julie South [00:10:42]:
Lots and lots of changes.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:10:49]:
There's a review going on right now into the accredited employer work visa scheme itself.

Julie South [00:10:55]:
Should I be excited about that or worried?

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:10:57]:
I think you could be excited. The government has done lots of consultation. We belong to industry groups for accreditation advisors and also the Recruitment, Consulting and Staffing Association. The ministry has talked to all of our immigration advisor groups, had a consultation with RCSA members, had a consultation working group with the Employers and Manufacturers association and others. And we have a real feeling that they're looking for practical and sensible changes to the system. In particular, I think we may see some changes coming up on the requirement that everyone has to get median wage. There might be something coming that's going to benchmark things more to perhaps minimum wage plus a factor or perhaps market rate which they may consider some variation per industry. So that would be good.

Julie South [00:11:46]:
That will, if I'm understanding you correctly, that will have a positive impact. Maybe, maybe not, depending on which way you look at it for vet nurses. Because right now vet nurses have to earn almost $30 an hour. If they're coming in under an accredited work visa. Correct.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:12:08]:
They need to earn 2966 for an accredited work visa and 3161 to be able to apply for residence.

Julie South [00:12:15]:
Right.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:12:15]:
So at the moment we've got two different wages according to the different visa type. The category they're reviewing right now is the work vis. The review of the residence applications will take place next year.

Julie South [00:12:25]:
So the work visa 2966 at the.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:12:29]:
Moment, and that may change. So, yeah, from the hiring point of view, the vet nieces may not be pleased to have less pressure on employers to pay that much, but it might make it more achievable. We've been contacted by quite a few of your clients that are here on working holiday visas, and finding a permanent job who pays that much can be a challenge. So that situation may change.

Julie South [00:12:55]:
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Right, thank you. So that's that there's been a change with partner visas, is that correct?

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:13:09]:
Yes. So previously, Immigration has been issuing partnership open work visas, which have a limitation that the partner can only work for an accredited employer who's paying $29. 66. And that can be a real challenge because there are only around 30,000 accredited employers and depending on the skill level of the partner, they may be in a job that doesn't normally pay 2966 in New Zealand. And I know we've had people working in hospitality roles on, say, working holiday visas who swapped to a partnership work visa and then the employer said, but they're getting $27. I can't pay 2966, I can't keep employing them. From 2 December, that requirement will be coming off. So the partnership work visas will be fully open, no conditions, no pay requirement.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:13:58]:
And that will make it a lot more feasible for a whole family to make the move, because both partners will be able to work.

Julie South [00:14:05]:
Anything else that we need to know?

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:14:10]:
I think those are probably the biggies, but given it's only been a few weeks since we talked, that's quite a lot.

Julie South [00:14:15]:
Yeah, yeah. And like you said, there's still stuff being considered and under consideration.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:14:27]:
The accredited employer work visa review is supposed to be completed in November. So what happens is, after they've done all their feedback, they finalise the proposals that they want. It will need to go to Cabinet for approval before they release anything publicly.

Julie South [00:14:41]:
So the good news out of this conversation is that Immigration is hearing Minister Erica Stanford is hearing what employers are saying, what industry bodies are saying. She is doing her best to stamp down and rule out the fraudulent applications and hopefully we're through the worst of that delay now.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:15:08]:
Yes.

Julie South [00:15:09]:
The other good news is that, fingers crossed, it should be easier for vet nurses to come in on two fronts.

Julie South [00:15:19]:
I'm hearing here.

Julie South [00:15:20]:
One, because the dollars aren't going to.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:15:23]:
Be the work visa and the residence criteria are different. And I'm speculating what the final outcome on the salary review for the accredited employer work visa will be. I don't know where that's going to land, but I do know that's one of the factors that they've been considering in their review.

Julie South [00:15:39]:
Okay. So if that happens, crystal ball gazing, that will be really good for vet nurses on the accredited employee work visa. The other thing that I hear that could also be really good for vet nurses and it will be good for vets, but they come in on a green stamp is if a vet nurse's partner doesn't have a qualification or a skill set that would normally pay $30 an hour, then that makes it easier for them to get work. Is that correct?

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:16:20]:
Yes. So again, it's 2966 when we're talking about temporary work visas for them. But yes, that requirement that they have can only work for an accredited employer paying that higher wage, that will be lifted. So that's for new applications for people who are already in New Zealand whose partner has a visa that limits them to working for accredited employers. After 2 December, they'll be able to apply for a variation of conditions to have that changed.

Julie South [00:16:49]:
Do you think that will be an.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:16:50]:
Easy process, the variation of conditions? Yes, I think it will be reasonably.

Julie South [00:16:55]:
Straightforward because they've been pretty comprehensive in their checking so far. Yep. And that's what the backlog has been, this massive, thorough investigation into all applicants. Yeah. Anything else that you would like me to ask? I see a smile.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:17:18]:
It's hard to pick really. I guess what we're seeing in the employers that we're talking to is that people have been a little bit burnt by what's been happening in the immigration space and they are really quite encouraged to hear and see that things are starting to free up and it's starting to work better. It becomes more feasible for them to think about how having a migrant worker where they've been having difficulty recruiting locally for the role.

Julie South [00:17:45]:
We have a nurse right now that has been in the system for months. Unfortunately, the clinic is diying and it's taking months and months and months. On the other side of it, we have some absolutely fantastic nurses who are overseas, want to come here and hearing and the clinics have been A bit gun shy because their experience is it's taking so long for this whole visa thing to get through that they don't even want to consider an overseas nurse because it could be, you know, it's going back to the how it was before lockdown when it might take six months to get somebody to get a vet here or 12 months. Yeah. And it's taking that long now for a nurse.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:18:37]:
I hope that will come down to a sort of happy medium of maybe two to three months for the job check and the visa. You know, and if an employer's been advertising and looking, then I would strongly encourage anyone that even thinks they might end up with an overseas candidate as their successful candidate that they need to be thinking about that when they start the job advertising process. Because if they haven't and they haven't got the right things in the ad, that's going to have to be redone and you already lose at least two weeks.

Julie South [00:19:09]:
Yeah, yeah.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:19:10]:
From the get go.

Julie South [00:19:11]:
And. Yeah. And if it's not done correctly also, then there's a big question mark at immigration New Zealand side that they scrutinise and reject. Catherine, we've just talked about minimum wages and I use minimum in air quotes because I'm not actually referring to like the minimum wage, but I am referring to the minimum wage. Is there a threshold that clinics have to meet if somebody is coming here and they are a single parent, but.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:19:49]:
Anybody who wants to support dependent children on a visa while they're here on an accredited employer work visa, they need to be earning a minimum of $43,322.70 and that gets reviewed every year that is not related to the accredited employer work visa. Median wage requirement for people to get a work visa that at the moment, if employers are operating with a requirement to pay 2966, someone who's working at least 30 hours a week should be earning that much. But let's say if there's a change in the wage requirement that would allow you to support someone for an accredited employer work visa and you take advantage of that to drop the hourly rate that you're offering, they may come in under that threshold. We've seen that in another sector of caregiver workers, they're allowed to get a visa on $26.16 and you only have to guarantee 30 hours a week of work to support someone for an accredited employer work visa. So a caregiver on that pay rate who's only got 30 hours guaranteed actually couldn't support their dependent children to Come with them their total income.

Julie South [00:20:59]:
So that was 43,000.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:21:02]:
How much? 43,322.76. What a random number, isn't it?

Julie South [00:21:07]:
I was going to say, why don't they just make it 323,000?

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:21:12]:
It comes from the Social Security legislation, I believe.

Julie South [00:21:16]:
Of course. Yeah. Why can't they make it just a round number? Yeah, okay. But I mean $43,322.76. That's not that I. That would be a struggle to have a, to be a single parent.

Catherine Neazor Brady [00:21:32]:
In reality it would. Yeah, it would be very hard to afford rent and groceries and all the other things. And if that was broken down to just a 30 hour week, that's $27.78 an hour. So that hourly rate may not sound too bad, but if you only looking at a guaranteed 30 hours rather than a guaranteed 40 hours, there's actually quite a sizable difference.

Julie South [00:21:53]:
Okay, thank you. Thank you for clarifying that.

Julie South [00:22:01]:
I hope you found today's episode helpful. If you want to connect with Katherine direct, then check out the links for her at VeterinaryVoices NZ. All her information is there. And please, if you do that, please let her know that you heard her on this podcast. Thank you. A quick summary on what we've talked about today. Katherine talked about the five to six month delay in immigration New Zealand's visa issuance and the intelligence steps that Immigration New Zealand has now taken to deal with those hindrances to Kiwi businesses being able to get on with what they do. This is a good move actually.

Julie South [00:22:37]:
You've got to wonder why they didn't think of something like this to start with. Anyway, they've done it now and that's great. She also shared how employers are kind of shooting themselves in the foot, my words, not hers, by diying their own applications, especially when it comes to royally screwing up the job check process. Because of this, as Catherine has shared in her other episodes, it's an absolute minefield for novices. I'll put links to Catherine's other episodes. As I said earlier in the show notes for you to click and listen to. Catherine also covered the very significant changes that affect partner visas, ostensibly making it easier for partners to find work here as well, which is great news. And as you would have heard, one visa requirement I didn't realise is that visa applicants who are single parents have different wage thresholds.

Julie South [00:23:31]:
So if that's you or you're hiring a single parent, you definitely need to factor that into your plans. Thank you for spending the last little bit of your life with Katherine and me. We both absolutely appreciate the time that that's taken from you and for you and with us. I look forward to catching up with you again next week. This is Julie south signing off and inviting you to go out there and be the most fantabulous version of you you can be. Until next week. Kake teach.