By SIMON COLLINS
Thousands of foreigners who come to New Zealand on short-term work permits may be able to get permanent residence under a policy being prepared by Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel.
The policy would create a category of permanent residence for people employed in jobs that "contribute to New Zealand's economic development".
Ms Dalziel plans to take a paper on the issue to cabinet before Christmas.
The move comes amid increasing skill shortages which have prompted a consortium of businesses to hold an event in London on September 5 to tell expatriate New Zealanders about opportunities here. A New Zealand Jobs and Futures Expo is also being held in London in October.
The relative strength of the New Zealand economy at a time of world recession has already sparked a turnaround in migration, with a bigger net inflow of immigrants last month than in any month since February 1997.
Ms Dalziel said she was tackling the skill shortage on two fronts.
First, initiatives such as a planned migrant resource centre in Auckland and the Auckland Chamber of Commerce's website www.newkiwis.co.nz were under way to help people who had been given permanent residence on the basis of their skills to find jobs using those skills.
Second, the new residence category was being developed for those who already had jobs but could not get permanent residence.
"The previous Government brought in a long-term business visa," Ms Dalziel said. "That is a mechanism for coming into the country, establishing a business. And at the end of the three-year period, operating a successful business for two years or more in NZ is a criterion for residence under the entrepreneur category.
"We are looking to see whether we can develop a similar system for work, subject to the usual health and character checks."
She said the new category would be available only for jobs which contributed to New Zealand's economic development in areas of labour shortage.
"People are much more mobile today," she said. "Once you have moved once, you are much more likely to move again in the future.
"So one of the things we need to do is focus on ensuring that people are satisfied with their move to New Zealand. Can we offer them residence as a hook to remain?
"My view is that if they have come in to meet a particular shortage, and have an ongoing opportunity to work here, why not look at creating that mechanism for them to remain?"
Immigration consultants are hailing the change. The chairman of the Association for Immigration and Investment, Bill Milnes, said the present rule that work permits could be granted only if suitable New Zealanders were not available caused "appalling problems".
"The work permit processing section of the Immigration Service is pretty brutal.
"There are an awful lot of jobs that New Zealanders are not able to do because there has been no training."
He estimated that several thousand people here on work permits could qualify for permanent residence under the new policy.
The association's deputy chairman, Tony Tse, said ethnic restaurants seeking specialist chefs would be among the major winners.
"There is always a shortage, especially for ethnic chefs who know how to cook some specific cuisines like Italian or Malaysian or Chinese," he said.
He cited a Chinese chef who was allowed in on a work permit but had to return to China every three years to apply for a new one.
"This caused unnecessary cost and during that short period the restaurant was running short of a chef."
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