New Zealand will reopen its borders two months ahead of schedule and ease immigration rules to lure skilled workers, ending more than two years of severe entry restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.
Jacinda Ardern’s government has operated a “zero-Covid” strategy for much of the health crisis that has included harsh lockdowns and a closed border.
The Labour party government said on Wednesday that it would lift restrictions from July 31, easing entry for workers in certain sectors including healthcare, engineering and tech, and provide a faster route to residency.
Entry requirements for overseas students will also be eased.
But rules for unskilled workers will remain in place, the government added, saying the country should not return to its pre-pandemic reliance on low-cost migrant labour.
The prime minister said the country was “fully open for business”.
“This will be welcome news for families, businesses and our migrant communities,” Ardern said, adding that it would provide “certainty” ahead of the peak spring and summer tourism seasons.
The prime minister also announced a new “Green List” of 85 high-skilled roles that have proved hard to fill and the extension of 20,000 work visas. New Zealand businesses that want to hire skilled overseas workers will be subject to less bureaucracy and the visa approval process will be streamlined, the government said.
But immigration minister Kris Faafoi said the country could “not return to pre-pandemic trends that saw us overly reliant on growing numbers of lower-skilled workers and resulted in the increased exploitation of migrants”.
“Our plan is to grow skills at home,” he said.
Erica Stanford, immigration spokesperson for the opposition National party, said the government was not acting quickly enough and had not listened to business demands to improve recruitment of low-skilled workers.
“Business New Zealand had been expecting an announcement about how to get workers in more quickly and they did not get that,” she told the New Zealand Herald newspaper.
The decision to ease restrictions came after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand lifted interest rates 0.5 percentage points to 1.5 per cent last month, the highest single increase in 22 years.
A week later, inflation for the year to March hit 6.9 per cent, the biggest rise since 1990, prompting the Auckland Business Chamber to urge the government “to move on the stifling immigration settings so employers can bring in the skills to meet demand and build productivity and competitiveness”. Unemployment in the country is just 3.2 per cent.
