Employer Advice & Services

EMPLOYER SERVICES

As an employer you know your business best and we understand that the process can be very daunting to employer someone on a visa. We can make the application process smooth and less stressful for all involved as we are experts in immigration advice and visa processing.

We work with you to ensure the candidate or current employee submits the most comprehensive application to offer then the best chance of success. This will allow you to spend your precise time on doing what you do best in your business.

We specialise in:

Temporary Work Visas

Residence Visas

Partnership Visas

Working alongside employers to take the stress off them in the immigration space

How can Visas for NZ help you?

We offer a ‘visa health check’ where we look at all your employees who are on temporary visas to see:

If their visa is still fit for purpose or suggest a different type of visa
Check their eligibility for residence.
Discuss with them their family situation and options.
Discuss timings of renewal for visas to ensure they can retain work rights.
Provide you with reminders of expiry dates of your employee’s visas.
Informing you if their passports are due to expire as they will need to transfer their visas.
Discuss with your New Zealand employees who have foreign partners what their options are.

Other services:

Free consultations with your staff at your premises if you prefer.
Special discounts for your or your staff on our services
NZQA assessments applications if your staff need the qualifications assessed.
Regular newsletters updating you of upcoming changes or recent changes and how this can affect your business.
Advertise your vacancies on our Facebook, website and other networks throughout the world.
Liaise with any recruitment companies you engage with for your vacancies.
Help with recruitment from overseas.

Based in Hamilton and Tauranga, we are available to hold face to face meetings at your premises or alternative venues with you or your employees.

Other options are skype, zoom, phone call or email.

CHANGES THAT WILL AFFECT YOU & YOUR STAFF

Temporary visa changes including accreditation – mid 2021

Every employer who is going to employ a temporary visa holder will require to be accredited in some form or another.

This is going to mean a lot of work to be compliant, extra costs and extra processing times.

Immigration New Zealand have not released the actual policy yet, this is to be due to be released in April.

Work to Residence visas will disappear, so if your staff are currently not on a Work to Residence visas but are eligible (either through you being an accredited employer) or fit the criteria for Long to Term Skill Shortage role, then it is very important they apply for new visas now before the changes happen as this pathway to residence will now longer be available for first time Work to Residence visa applicants.

Minimum hourly rate for 3-year work visa

Immigration New Zealand has indicated that this is going to go up from $25.50 to $27.00 around July 2021.

This would mean anyone earning under $25.50 per hour would only be eligible for a 6-month visa and you may have to engage with WINZ to see if they have New Zealanders available.

If you will not be paying your employee $27 or more, it would be best to apply for visas before these changes take effect.

When to apply

Due to the above changes likely to happen and taking into consideration that there is a higher volume of visas being applied for at present we would suggest that you have a discussion with your employees around pay rate and renewing their visas sooner rather than later.

We would suggest that in most cases if your employee has a visa that is due to expire in the next year that they apply before mid-2021, especially if they are getting paid under $27 per hour.

Applying before the accreditation becomes compulsory will also lessen your workload and expense as an employer.

The new Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) starts from 1 November 2021

– The new policy will be implemented from 01 November 2021.

– The employers can start lodging applications from late September 2021.

– The applicants can continue to apply for current visas until 01 November.

– Applications for the current accreditation, Labour Hire accreditation and Approval in Principal will be available until 30 June 2021 and can be used until 31 October 2021.

– Currently accredited employers will need to meet the new requirements under new accreditation policy.

The changes

Before hiring a migrant on the AEWV employers will need to:

apply for accreditation under the new system
apply for a job check to make sure the role they want to fill cannot be done by New Zealanders, and
request a migrant worker to apply for a visa.

The migrant will need to meet the skills and experience stipulated as part of the job check.