Many employers will be aware that the Immigration New Zealand (INZ) approach regarding multi-location Job Check applications has been a little confusing, and on occasion inconsistent. In response, INZ will soon be offering a ‘micro-webinar’ to confirm their approach on this.
In the meantime, INZ has issued guidance (summarised below) for HR managers and employers when completing Job Check applications, and although this does assist, it’s still not clear cut on every occasion, as we explain:
Working in Multiple Regions (Not Multiple Locations/Same Region):
- Work is going to be carried out consistently and for several weeks/months in all relevant regions? – Role needs to be advertised in each region.
Example: A Job Check for a worker who will be working in Canterbury, Wellington, and Auckland, where there is a genuine reason and intention for the worker to work in all those regions? The role needs to be advertised in each region.
Note: This is assessed on a case-by-case basis, considering specific details, so advice that covers every scenario cannot be provided. In general, one-off training or meetings would not be considered consistent work in multiple regions, whereas working regularly for significant periods of time in different regions would be.
- Multiple positions in the same Job Check where work is going to be carried out in all relevant regions by those workers? – Roles need to be advertised in each region.
Example: A Job Check for multiple workers for Canterbury, Wellington, and Auckland, where there is a genuine reason and intention for all workers to work in all those regions at some point in their employment (note: they don’t all have to move or be employed there at the same time). The roles need to be advertised in each region.
Note: This excludes a Job Check for multiple positions where some positions are only for one region and some positions are only for other regions – e.g. a Job Check for 15 workers where 5 positions are in Canterbury only, 5 are in Wellington only, and 5 are in Auckland only. In this case, the roles need to be advertised separately (i.e. Job Check for Canterbury x5, Job Check for Wellington x5, and Job Check for Auckland x5).
- What if work may be going to be carried out in a region? There needs to be a genuine reason and actual intention for the worker to work in all the relevant regions at some point during their employment. Job Checks are not able to be approved for regions where a genuine reason or intention to work there has not been established at the time the Job Check is submitted – for example the possibility that an employer may win a contract they are bidding on in a certain region at the time. In this scenario, it is likely a job change application would be required later, if the employer won the bid and therefore at that stage had an actual genuine need and intention to send the worker to that location to perform work.
Travelling Between Multiple Different Regions:
- If the role is primarily based in one location with occasional travel to other regions, the role only needs to be advertised in the main or head office region.
Example: If a truck driver role always leaves and returns to Wellington (the base of the role) but they travel to different regions as part of their route, the role is still primarily based in Wellington and multiple locations does not apply. The role needs to be advertised only for Wellington.
Travelling Between Multiple Locations of Work Within the Same Region:
- Visa labels/conditions are based on region rather than suburb or city, so travel within the same region is generally permitted under the visa conditions.
Example: If an employee works in Christchurch (in Canterbury) but is also required to travel to Ashburton (also in Canterbury) for part of their work, the visa label/conditions will specify Canterbury and will not specify Christchurch or Ashburton. This scenario only involves one region, so multi-regional advertising does not apply.
We hope employers will find this guide useful. However, you may still be unsure if your position requires work in multiple locations or whether your employee will be travelling between multiple different regions, or something in between. If so, get in touch with us today to discuss your situation further, to ensure that the Job Check is completed correctly the first time to avoid having to repeat the process, and more importantly, you don’t have a subsequent compliance issue for illegal employment in the future to manage.
