In the year June 2015 to June 2016, New Zealand has had more immigrants than ever before. In fact, we now have the highest number of new residents of any OECD country. 200,000 people were given temporary work visas; this is 30,000 more than last year. The number of people with a Resident Visa was up 20% to 52,000. Auckland is still the most popular choice of city with 800 new residents settling there every week. It is easy to see how this creates more problems with housing shortages and traffic jams.
However, many immigrants choose to work in the regions. There is a 45% increase in the number of skilled workers in the regions.
In spite of the increase in work visas, there are still shortages in some work areas like dairy farming, construction, health and ICT – Information and Communication Technology.
People on work visas are not taking jobs from New Zealanders. Employers have to advertise jobs and offer the job to citizens and residents first.
Vocabulary
• OECD – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (35 member countries)
• temporary work visa – one-, two-, or three-year visa for a particular job
• shortage – not enough
• construction – building
Note: A migrant is an immigrant. We use both words.
Grammar
In spite of – although, even though
Thank you for eNews, a very good source to teach migrants and refugees.
Can I have a question please?
What do you mean ‘People on work visas are not taking jobs from New Zealanders.’ Although ‘Employers have to advertise jobs and offer the job to citizens and residents first, the job in need of NZ worker should be taken domestically by whoever NZ citizen or temporary visa holder is. That means the job opportunity could be taken by non-PR or non-citizenship holder. Am I misunderstanding?
Sorry I didn’t see your comment earlier. When an employer has a vacancy, s/he has to advertise it. If a suitable NZ citizen or permanent resident is available for that job, then it cannot be offered to anyone just on a work visa. However, if no NZ citizen or permanent resident applies, then someone on a work visa would be considered for the job. Does that make it clearer?