Could an overseas worker fill a vacancy at your business?

It’s tough to hire new staff at the moment – the labour shortage has reached a critical level, with record employment, and very low immigration. If you’re having trouble filling crucial job vacancies at your business, you might still be able to employ someone from overseas.

Migrants already in New Zealand

Migrants already living in New Zealand, who have visas, have had their visas extended. They can usually work for any employer, although they may be some restrictions depending on the individual visa. You can find out more about employing migrants already in New Zealand here.

Bringing in an employee from overseas

As an employer, you can also bring workers into New Zealand. This requires an investment of time and money, but it can be worthwhile if you are really struggling to find someone for that pivotal role. There is quite a long list of approved classes of critical workers, and you can request entry if you’re looking for someone in one of these jobs. This includes tech. sector workers, vets, advanced manufacturing specialists, auditors, and many more (you can see the full list here).

The role you’re offering needs to be paying at least $27 an hour for these approved classes of workers, and you need to demonstrate that you can’t find someone local to do the role. You can also employ other workers, whose roles aren’t on that list, but you’ll need to pay at least $40.50 an hour and, also, show you couldn’t find a Kiwi to do the job.

One option is to use an agency to help guide you through the process of bringing in an overseas worker to fill a role within your company. Expect this to take up to three months and cost up to $10,000.

Is it worthwhile going through this process?

Considering the time and money involved, would it be worthwhile to hire from overseas? We can help you run a cost-benefit analysis to see whether it stacks up.

We also have ideas for ways your business could become more productive, through systems or tweaks, to help get the most from your current team. We’d love to help you build a more profitable business, so give us a call.