Changes to Employer Accreditation and the AEWV

Ensuring an applicant is suitably qualified: It’s going to be a fairly easy one for those doing a good job at recruiting. I don’t see this as a too much of a problem. What I would say is keep reports. If you’re recruiting through us, that’s not a problem. We will have all those records, but if you’re doing it yourself, you know, don’t just rely on the CV. Do some reference checks and keep records. It could be important, especially to keep your accreditation.  

The big one here, though, is the minimum skills threshold, and this is where previously, we could bring anybody into New Zealand. They didn’t have to have the three years relevant work experience – they could have no relevant work experience and we could get them in.  

Now the threshold has been raised and it’s been raised up to a minimum of at least three years or they have a bachelor’s degree, or they’ve got a relevant qualification that’s assessed as level 4 or higher.

There are some exemptions to this, obviously. Anybody on the green list and who can meet the green list requirements are exempt and anybody paid 2 times the national medium wage would be exempt.

Plus, those who have got occupation registration.

So most people are going to require that to meet the minimum skills threshold. Now that is in the two-year extensions as well. So that’s causing a lot of grief there for those who have come out on an AEWV who didn’t provide their work experience in their initial application wouldn’t have to now they’re being asked for at least three years relevant work experience. 

Some don’t have, so we’re looking at those ones and saying, well, you might need to wait until the last minute of your current visa so you get three years relevant work experience in New Zealand in your current position and then submit it. But there’s, you know, obviously risks to leaving it to the last minute.

These changes especially are going to affect four to five roles, so, you know, ANSCO mentions that maybe a high school qualification or at least one year or not even any experience would be suitable for this particular role.

But Immigration New Zealand are going to ask for three years minimum. And so they they’re asking for more than what the ANSCO is stating, which is a little bit too far and as I see it, Australia to give you an example, have recently said that they’re going to reduce their threshold to just one year’s relevant work experience.  

So they’ve gone from two years down to one. We’ve gone up from zero to three. So yeah, it’s a bit of a difference in the countries.

I’ll give you a little example of how this would affect a level 4 occupation.

If they’ve come in, if they can’t meet the minimum requirements because they don’t have the work experience. They’re not likely to have a bachelor’s degree. They might have a Level 4 qualification or higher, but that’s going to need an NZQA assessment, which is going to take, say, 12 weeks for processing, and maybe $500.00 extra.

And so that is quite, you know, 12 weeks – we’re waiting enough to get a visa through these days. We don’t want to wait another 12 weeks. So without that experience it makes life really, really difficult for the for the four to five roles. 

Also, while we’re talking about the sufficient evidence of work experience – when immigration say they must show at least three years relevant work experience, they are also mentioning that it must be sufficient evidence. So the days of just providing a work reference, it’s not going to be enough. In most cases you’re going to have to provide some information that’s going to support that work reference: so payslips or tax information, something that can be verifiable which you know Immigration aren’t doing too many checks these days, but they want to see something in addition to the work reference, so just make sure that there’s lots of information to support their work experience. 

English: coming into the four or five roles, applicants are going to need to do an English test. It’s quite a low threshold, but it’s causing problems and we’ve got an example of someone who’s worked here on an old essential skills work visa for five years in New Zealand and they are now to renew their visa with an AEWV and they can’t meet their English requirements and have failed twice. So that’s putting that application into jeopardy.

So suitable New Zealanders. Yeah, we’re going to have to advertise for longer for these four to five roles. It’s not such a big deal, but dealing with Work and Income can be a bit of a process. So just be mindful that it might take a little bit longer and they will refer candidates and you need to be very, very careful of the way you assess any candidates that come through.

On top of this, Immigration have kind of have added in some things to the instructions which say that the employer must consider the any candidates that could be trained.

Now that’s quite a difficult one to deal with. The latest I’ve seen from Immigration is that they consider somebody that would take a reasonable amount of time to be trained. Would it be about six months?

So if we’re doing a Job Check and we’re saying we want one year’s experience, and if somebody applies with six months of experience, typically we would be able to rule them out as not suitable.  

Well, now we do need to consider them as to whether they can be trained for the position. 

In ANSCO 4 to 5 positions, they also want a declaration with the Job Check to confirm that you have done those checks.

What we are seeking clarification on is just whether the declaration’s not needed for one to three roles, so the higher skill level roles but we are just seeking clarification as to whether we do need to consider those candidates for training for those higher skilled roles.

At the moment we’re doing that. We would normally do that anyway, but it doesn’t – it’s not clear enough as to whether it’s mandatory.

So we’ll have to have some more information about that.

And yeah, grounds for revoking accreditation. They’ve just added in that 30 hours a week, which is nothing new. You must pay your AEWV or you must have guaranteed them in their employment agreement when they apply for their visa 30 hours a week. So you must pay them 30 hours a week as the economy is a bit sluggish.

You know, questions are being asked whether they can reduce AEWV workers hours. No, you can’t. You must pay them 30 hours.

And just remember, it’s not 60 hours a fortnight, it’s 30 hours a week. That’s the wording.

Notifying Immigration of employees leaving: So it’s just the AEWV holders. It’s just good practise anyway to notify Immigration. But now they’ve put that into the instructions that you must do that. So there’s an e-mail address up on the Immigration website for employers to do that. I’m hoping it will turn up in the adept system so that we can easily do that. And if you can’t find the address, just let me know. 

Also, just with the suspensions of accreditation, if an employee’s being investigated.
INZ now have the power to suspend accreditation over that during the time of the investigation.

So. The maximum continuous stay is a bit contentious.

For highly skilled roles, you know, one to three ANSCO roles, it’s five years at the moment and you’re faced with a 12 month stand down, which means that the applicant needs to be offshore. So outside of New Zealand for 12 continuous months, so if they ended up here as a visitor, that won’t count in the 12-month period, so they’ll have to leave for an extra month or so. 

And it’s yeah, this is the concerning part to employers.

There are ways of avoiding the stand down, but most of them are going to be avoided by the applicant becoming a New Zealand resident. And as we all know, residency is very, very tough at the moment, so not many are getting through.

There is a slight trick that we’re trying to use and that is that if your AEWV worker has a partner here, let’s see if we can get the partner their own AEWV and then your employee gets their partnership work visa, so swapping them around.

That’s worked in the past, so that’s something that you might want to consider looking into as to whether the partner is able to get an AEWV.

So that put that potentially could give them another two to five years in New Zealand.

For four to five roles that stand down period’s going to come into play after three years. For most of them, they’re not going to be able to, well, a lot of them are not going to be able to get their two year extension.

So, if you’re going to recruit any new AEWV workers for the lower skilled roles, the visa is also going to be for just two years.

But you are able to extend that visa for one more year if you do another Job Check.  

So basically they want you to do more labour market testing after two years to get that extra year. But after that extra year, you know they’re going to be faced with the stand down period.

The two year extensions: As I said that the rules about the rugs being pulled from underneath some of these workers.

The four to five roles might not be able to get their extension.

And they, you know, there’s some dates there that Immigration have provided to say, hey, look, between the 21st of June 2023 and the 6th of April, if they submitted their AEWV during that time and they were in a fortified role, they’ll still be eligible for the two year extension.

The immigration’s explanation of that is that, you know, at the time that they submitted, they were under the impression that we’re going to get a 5 year visa, you know, and so they’ve given a little bit of leeway there. I think that’s completely wrong because at the time the borders opened, everybody was eligible for a 3 year visa at the time, and we could renew as many times as we’d like. So why aren’t we giving it to those people? I don’t understand that one anyway.

So another way of the four to five roles being able to get their two year extension is if they’re on the green list and they meet the requirements, which is tough.  

They’re in the transport sector – so work to residence transport sector which not many are, or they’re paid 1.5 times the national medium wage, which is far-fetched for most, but that’s a possibility or they’ve applied before the 6th of April and they’re part of the care workforce or the transport Sector Agreements.

So, you know, there’s little exceptions there where they can apply. What you’ve got to understand is that the ANSCO code that we were using, or everybody was using, when we’re doing these Job Checks over the last two years was not really relevant. Sure, we’ll get a sort of match to it, but there were no implications of getting that ANSCO code wrong now.

Those Job Checks are causing us grief because the ANSCO code might not be a one to three ANSCO.

It puts these guys’ extensions at risk and that is really unfortunate. And yeah, if I had a crystal ball, or a time machine, I’d go back to those ANSCOs and re-look at them. But yeah, it is what it is.

The solution to that, though, if we have used a lower ANSCO code is to not re use the old Job Check token. So just do a new Job Check. But what that’s going to require is offering the work at a higher skilled role, so genuinely offer them a higher skilled role. Do the Job Check for it, if the Job Check finds no suitable is approved and there’s no suitable Kiwis for the role, then the worker applies for the new AEWV and probably would get another at least another two years on there to take them to the maximum of five years in New Zealand.

As I said, we’ll take a look now at residency options because you know the stand down period. To avoid that, we really want those workers to be able to get to residency. 

And as I mentioned, it’s out of reach for most, especially trades very, very difficult for them. 

The reason for that is, is that most of them are looking at the skilled migrant category and as you can see there. 

A bachelor or higher degree that rules out most trades. They won’t have it if they don’t have that. They’re looking to earn 1.5 times the national median wage to almost 100K year. If they can’t reach that, then it must be a registered occupation, and so you can see that most welders, scaffolders, you know, it’s going to be really difficult for the trades to get to residency at the moment. 

On top of that, if you decide that yes, I can pay the 1.5 times the national median wage, well, that’s great. They need at least three years relevant work experience on that higher rate now. 

That puts us into a bit of a conundrum where we don’t have enough time on their current visa to get the three years relevant work experience or skilled work experience at the higher rate.  

Now INZ did say late last year that they would provide exemptions for people who are on a pathway to residency, but we don’t know what that looks like yet and it hasn’t been announced yet.  

So you’ve got to consider this in your recruitment strategy because your workers can’t get to residency, they can’t extend their visas, they can’t have a partner take over as the principal applicant. Then we’ve got an issue. They’re going home most likely. And so your recruitment strategy needs to consider that. 

Going on to the next slide, looking at other resident pathways for them, these are green list occupations and say there are some healthcare and transport sector agreements as well which allow work to residence pathways. So straight to residence and worker residence are definitely a great option. English might be a bit of trouble for some of them and their dependent family so it is something to bring up. 

Now they need to figure out if they can meet the English requirements or if they’re going to need some lessons. 

But they need to start that now. 

English test results are valid for two years, so they could complete a test now, and if they pass, it’s likely they’ll be able to use it in their in their application. 

The biggest concern here is the ANSCO assessment. 

The ANSCO assessment that was done in the Job Check for the AEWV doesn’t necessarily mean they’re in that occupation. As per the green list, there will be another ANSCO assessment when they submit a straight residence or work to residence.  

Work to residence is really where I’m concerned. 

So I feel that when submitting a work to residence application, the ANSCO assessmenEt is going to be critical to that.  

Consider them not in the occupation that the green list has listed because the ANSCO code’s not a substantial match to their current job, and that is going to be a massive problem in a couple of years’ time, and it’s going to cause a lot of headaches.  

So for workers that aren’t in Sector Agreement (positions), I would be assessing their ANSCO (codes) right now because it could impact the two year start date for their work experience to count and it could all blow up in your face in a couple of years.

Onto the renewals, the renewals looked pretty heavy going when we first saw them come out, but they’re not. It seems to be quite a straightforward process. 

But the potential for trouble is on the cards. If you haven’t done what you’ve said you’re going to do in your in your first period of accreditation and Immigration start asking questions, there will be problems.  

So for those who have done their employer modules, who have done their settlement support, yeah, shouldn’t be a problem.  

And we’re finding that that applications are getting processed quite quickly. 

You need to understand the Immigration changes. You know the changes to AEWV to make a decision on whether you do need to renew your accreditation or not.  

So we’ll go to the next slide, basic parts to the accreditation.  

You know you’ve got to be financially stable and genuinely operating so Immigration could potentially ask for information about that. 

You’re gonna make some declarations there. They might ask you for P n L (Profit and Loss) to confirm whether those declarations are correct. 

The compliance is really important, and Immigration have some allowances there. So if for some reason you haven’t been compliant for some part of that accreditation process, they want to know what you’ve done to fix that issue and how quickly that happened.  

So be upfront. You know, be on the front foot, provide evidence that you’ve fixed the issues. 

And just remember that settlement support must have been provided within the first month of the worker commencing employment, so those who haven’t provided settlement support within that time frame, there doesn’t seem to be any allowances there. 

But I would say Immigration will take a reasonable approach to it. If you have provided it to them then I’m sure if I was outside of that one month, I’m sure they’ll be OK with it. If you’ve just provided it to them two years later, maybe they’ll have concerns. 

I’m on to the next slide.  

So your financial position. Recruitment practises, you know they will be looking at the new settings. So have you considered these AEWVs? Have you looked into them and made sure that they’re suitably qualified for the role, and you’ve done some reference checking – they might want to see a bit of that evidence.

They wanna know that your employment agreements are up to date. Everybody’s gone through that process already.

And Job Checks. And you know, they’re pretty strict on employment agreements, so make sure that they are up to date. And yeah, make sure you’re complying, that’s for sure.

Really the key changes to the to the accreditation is the grounds for suspension – it’s just something to be aware of – that you know, you could be faced with a suspension during an active investigation, which is, you know, something just to keep in the back of your mind.

Employ workers for at least 30 hours a week. That’s stock standard, really. And luckily or thank goodness, franchisee accreditation is gone. It made no sense.
That’s disappearing. If you’ve got franchise accreditation, you’re on to a standard or high volume now, so you can apply for that.

On the next slide, again, as we’ve mentioned, you know you must ensure that any AEWV candidate that you’re recruiting is suitably qualified and skilled. 

And most of our clients and most of you on this webinar will do good jobs there. So we’re not too concerned about it. 

And the suspension grounds have just been a bit, you know, given the issues they’ve had and been in the media, they’ve really wanted to clamp down on employers. So I think it’s a good thing.

The next slide, 30 hours a week, again, franchisee gone, renewing accreditation, you know it’s only required for when you want to continue to recruit AEWV workers or you want to support residency, so that’s including work to residence. 

You don’t need to renew accreditation to retain your current AEWV workers.
I again don’t agree with that. I think if we’re tying employers into certain standards, we should keep them into those certain standards. But that’s up to Immigration.

And yeah, so you don’t need to keep it if you just wanted to retain your existing staff, you can let it lapse.  

Remember that if you let it lapse for more than 12 months, Immigration will treat any accreditation application after that point as a brand-new application. 

And yeah, keeping accreditation enables your workers to do their extensions, to apply for other visas. In residency, that’s the main part.

The pros and cons really of renewing your accreditation: If you want to discuss whether it’s right for your business, then let me know. 

As I say, I’m a fan of keeping employers within the accreditation system. I like my employers kept on their toes when employing migrant workers. It’s very important to be tied into (the system). That’s just my thoughts on it, but yeah.

But it’s not required to keep the (AEWV) staff, so you know it, it’s serious consideration, especially if you hold high volume paying that kind of application fee. 

So that’s really it for the for the changes in the accreditation, as I say, it’s a really brief overview of it. I’m going to pass you back to Tanya. She’ll finish up, have a good afternoon. 

Thanks Cam. Well, as you can all hear immigration’s a minefield, it’s changing all the time. There’s lots of ins and outs and things to be aware of. 

My advice is if you need help, engage an expert Licenced Immigration Adviser and there’s a lot of things that the team and the VisaAide team know within People Inc that other people aren’t aware of.  

So look, we can help, we can help with creating documentation, reviewing documentation, making sure everything’s compliant. 

The Immigration Advisers manage all compliance for you. They manage your entire application through to conclusion and they’re here to help. Plus we have a Direct Line to the case officers in INZ.  

So it’s 12.32, we’re two minutes late. So thanks everyone for taking the time to join us today. Hopefully you have learned some tips and tricks. If you’ve got any questions, drop us a line and we will be happy to help.  

Thanks everyone for your time. Really appreciate it. Have a great afternoon.