By Uglobal Staff
The New Zealand government has announced that an inquiry commission will review the country’s working-age immigration policy, including assessing the skilled migrant visa category and recommend ways to boost investment immigration in the country.
“This inquiry will enable New Zealand to strategically optimise its immigration settings by taking a system-wide view, including the impact of immigration on the labour market, housing and associated infrastructure, and the natural environment,” stated Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson.
The commission’s mandate includes studying the impact of increases in net migration on housing markets, social cohesion, and natural environment, as well as on the exchange rates and GDP growth. It will also assess how the country should meet its labour and skill shortages in the future, and analyse whether the skills of migrants were matching the employment opportunities in New Zealand.
On the vital issue of investment immigration, the inquiry body will focus on “how to attract and benefit from investor migrants and entrepreneurial migrants whose skills, experience, capital and international connections can support New Zealand’s economic and social progress, including via creating new businesses and improving New Zealand’s reach into higher-value industries”.
Other questions the commission will look into include finding out whether there is any truth to the perceptions that jobs of domestic workers were being taken over by migrant workers, especially in the low skilled category. Student visas as a pathway to residency will also be put under the lens.
The Productivity Commission has to come up with its findings before the deadline of April 30, 2022.
“The Commission looks forward to working alongside Māori and Pacific communities, migrant and ethnic communities, relevant government agencies, skills organisations, partners (the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi and Business New Zealand), and many others,” said Productivity Commission’s Ganesh Nana in a statement.
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