Heather du Plessis-Allan: Govt's immigration reset is keeping NZ poor

The Government is choosing to make a difficult situation worse with its immigration reset by deliberately stopping more workers coming in, writes Heather du Plessis-Allan. Photo / Alex Burton

OPINION:

Normally an unemployment rate as low as 3.2 per cent would be something to be proud of.

But talk to any employer looking for workers right now and that number isn't something to celebrate. It represents frustration and worry.

That number is losing the country money.

An Auckland barbershop has closed after 20 years because it can't find staff.

Sealord is 300 workers short. That'll lose it $5m in the Nelson factory this hoki season alone.

Waitoa can't sell as many frozen chicken nuggets as it wants to or as its customers want to buy. It needs 100 staff.

Hotels are offering guests discounts if they clean their own rooms.

Restaurants are reducing hours because they don't have enough people to cook and serve food. They're down a quarter of the staff they need. Wellington restaurant Monsoon Poon's owner is working as a kitchen hand just to fill the job.

Wellington's Tawa Pool will close temporarily because it can't find enough lifeguards.

Every type of business needs workers. Tradies, retailers, mechanics, GP clinics. Not to mention schools and hospitals.

37 per cent of businesses told NZIER's Business Confidence survey that a lack of staff is the primary thing preventing them from growing.

This problem isn't unique to us. The UK's short on staff. Australia's short on staff. There's a global race for talent.

But the crazy thing is that our Government is choosing to make a difficult situation worse with its immigration reset by deliberately stopping more workers coming in.

Normally we'd have up to 70,000 working holiday makers in NZ. National reckons we have fewer than 5,000 right now.

The labour shortage is now so bad that everyone who wants a job has a job. Photo / Getty Images

It's a struggle to get in the few workers who have Government permission to migrate. The paperwork's a kerfuffle. The immigration department can't clear the workload fast enough. For many businesses the borders are still just as shut as they were during the lockdown era.

And now we're losing our Kiwi workers, with 20,000 expected to move overseas this year. So many young people have already left that rental properties are now sitting empty.

The Government means well. They're choking off the supply of cheaper international workers to drive up Kiwis' wages.

But they're misguided. It's gone too far. It's shutting down businesses. It's keeping New Zealand poorer. It's not growing the pie. It's keeping the pie the same size and just cutting the bits a little differently.

The labour shortage is now so bad that everyone who wants a job has a job. Employers are now stealing workers off each other. For every business that finds a worker, another one loses a worker. It's a pass the parcel of pain.

It says a lot that ANZ's CEO Antonia Watson called on the Government to let workers in. She voiced her concern during the PM's trip to Australia. It apparently went down like a lead balloon with the PM's office. Watson was supposed to be a cheerleader not a truth talker.

But she's right. We do "want a more productive economy" but it "will take years and investment" and "in the meantime... people are just crying out for staff".

The Aussies have realised they need to do both at once: start to invest now in a longer term fix, while importing more crucial skills immediately.

We can't let this carry on for years while productivity slowly catches up.

We all want Kiwis' wages to lift. But for them to have wages, they need to have jobs. And for them to have jobs, there need to be thriving businesses creating jobs.

That's now being prevented by the immigration reset.