Recent changes to the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) could make recruitment easier for employers but it still leaves room for exploitation, a union advocate says.
Introduced in 2022, the AEWV allows migrants to work in New Zealand for an accredited employer for up to five years.
From 10 March, employers recruiting under the AEWV policy will no longer be required to pay migrants an income that matches the median wage ($31.61 an hour, $29.66 in 2023-2024), only comply with New Zealand's minimum wage rules (currently $23.15 an hour, increasing to $23.50 an hour on 1 April).
Employers are still expected to pay migrant workers on par with their New Zealand counterparts, Immigration New Zealand said in an announcement last week.
Reina Tang, an immigration advisor, said the changes would lower the cost for employers who wanted to hire from overseas and stimulate the New Zealand job market in the short run.
The move showed that the government had listened to demands from employers to lower recruitment costs, she said.
"Labour costs were too high for small and medium-sized employers under the previous visa policy," she said.
"For example, the market salary for a kitchenhand is around $25, but applying for an AEWV visa requires employers to provide a median salary of $29.66.
"Faced with the uncertainty of future economic development, employers can only reduce business hours and use limited manpower to maintain operations."
The loosened requirements on pay might help prevent unnecessarily inflated pay rates for certain occupations, but it was unclear how far that would prevent migrant worker exploitation, said Anu Kaloti, president of the Migrant Workers Association.
For example, in an exploitation situation, under the old policy, a cleaner could be brought in for $29.66 per hour but was actually paid $25 per hour, Kaloti said.
From 10 March, cleaners could be offered higher pay on paper but could still be paid less, she said.
The new policy also reduces work experience requirement for migrants from three years to two years, which might make it easier for some onshore migrant workers to find a new job, she said.
"What that means is that the job market should open up a little bit more, especially for migrant workers who are still onshore but went onto the migrant exploitation visa and have had difficulties in finding jobs with credited employers for their journey here in New Zealand," Kaloti said.
"We are hopeful that it would help those workers."
She said the best practice to reduce migrant worker exploitation was to decouple workers' visa from their employer and provide more pathways to residency.
However, immigration lawyer Sonny Lam wasn't hopeful that the changes were going to help the labour market.
"The interest in work visas has waned," Lam said. "[The] economy is sluggish, and government missed the boat on bringing in workers when the employers were keen to hire.
"They made it too hard in 2024. Like a shifting pendulum, INZ swung too far the other way, and it will take time for people to take that risk."
From 10 March, the visa duration for ANZSCO Level 4 and 5 AEWV holders will be extended to three years.
Also, the requirement for employers to engage with the Ministry of Social Development will now become declaration based in "good faith".
Tang said employers previously needed to contact MSD to find a suitable person in New Zealand for lower-skilled roles they were looking to fill and provide details of the engagement as evidence they had attempted to recruit locally.
Employers now needed to simply declare they had attempted to find domestic staff, although they still needed to retain evidence of the search in case it was requested later.
The income threshold for supporting dependent children will be increased from an annual of $43,322.76 to $55,844 and will be updated annually in line with changes to the median wage.
From 28 February, AEWV holders who want to support a partner are still required to meet the wage threshold, which is increasing to $26.85 an hour.
There have been a series of changes to the AEWV visa in the past two years.
From 27 January, employers and employees are no longer required to complete the online modules, while the 90-day trial was removed in 2023.
This article was first published by RNZ
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