Good news for work visa holders!
Changes to the critical workers border exception category
Work visa holders with technical and specialist skills will be allowed into the country
New Zealand continues on the path to recovery from COVID-19, it is important that we strike the right balance between protecting New Zealand from COVID-19 and ensuring businesses have the critical workers they need to help in our recovery,â Minister Kris Faafoi said.
âIn order to help ensure key critical workers are able to come to New Zealand, we have made some small changes to immigration instructions around the assessment criteria for âother critical workersâ,â Kris Faafoi said.
âCurrently, an individual must have unique experience and technical or specialist skills that are ânot obtainableâ in New Zealand. This criterion will change to technical or specialist skills that are not âreadily obtainableâ in New Zealand. That wording change reflects that, in some fields, there is a very limited pool of experts and significant training would have to be undertaken before the skills were obtainable in New Zealand.â
âWe will also remove from the requirement for âthe skills, qualifications or work experience to have been gained overseasâ. Removing that requirement will allow entry, in some limited cases, where, for example, a worker has skills which are obtainable in New Zealand but they have unique experience gained overseas which would bring unique expertise to New Zealand businesses.
âThese changes are in response to concerns various sectors have been raising with us and aim to help provide clarity for businesses requesting a border exception for critical workers.