With less than a week until Christmas, the Minister of Immigration has announced a suite of changes that will be good news for employers and migrant workers alike.
The 12 days of Christmas gifts coming your way in stages throughout 2025:
- Goodbye median wage. The median wage requirement is set to be removed from Accredited Employer Work Visas (AEWV) in March 2025. Employers will still need to advertise and offer the appropriate market rate for roles. Note that median wage requirements are likely to remain for residence visa applications.
- Hello faster processing times. In the second half of 2024, we saw processing timeframes steadily improving, and Immigration New Zealand (INZ) is promising further improvements in 2025. Hip hip hooray for that!
- Reducing minimum work experience requirement. The “minimum skills requirement” will be reduced from three years of relevant work experience to two.
- Interim visa work rights. From April 2025, the rules for being able to work while on an interim visa will be relaxed to allow work rights for those moving on to an AEWV from other work or student visas. Good tidings here!
- Reduction in domestic workforce threshold for construction. The domestic workforce threshold (currently 35% must be New Zealand citizens or residents) will be reduced to 15% in certain construction roles from January 2025.
- Trust-based labour market testing. The requirements to engage with Work & Income will be amended to be declaration-based. Employers will still need to advertise with Work & Income – perhaps for a period less than 21 days – and will make a good faith declaration that they have made genuine efforts to recruit a suitably skilled New Zealand citizen or resident.
- Job-check makeover. INZ has promised a re-design of the job-check process to allow for greater streamlining for low-risk employers. Bring it on!
- Three-year work visa for ANZSCO level 4 and 5 roles. New visas issued from March 2025 will be issued for a single three-year period, rather than the current two-plus-one approach, which requires new applications to be made at the end of two years. This will reduce workload and costs for employers and migrants, while aligning the initial visa length to the maximum continuous stay.
- New pathways for seasonal workers. In November 2025, in time for the summer agricultural/horticultural season, new visas (promised to be more ‘fit for purpose’) will be introduced to support the agricultural and horticultural sectors. Roll on summer.
- Supporting family. The minimum amount the main applicant must earn in order to support partners and children on accompanying visas will be inflation-adjusted to $55,844 p.a. (equivalent to $26.85 p/hr based on a 40-hour working week).
- So long Employment New Zealand modules. Employers will no longer need to complete the employer modules or offer the employee modules to their AEWV holders. From late January, this information will be shared directly by INZ with links made freely available to the relevant webpages. A much simpler and more practical approach to what has been an administrative headache for employers!
- Seasons Greetings. There is no number 12. However, the Lane Neave Immigration Law team wishes employers and migrant workers all the best for a happy holiday season and cheers to these improvements making things easier in future. See you in 2025!
