Hope rules for border exemptions for IT workers will be known this month

Thursday, 20 January 2022

NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller expects the number of exemptions for tech workers will increase once demand shown.

IT companies should find out by the end of the month how 600 border exemptions for migrant tech workers will be carved up between them, industry association NZTech hopes.

Digital Economy Minister David Clark announced in December that the exemptions would be granted to higher paid software and application programmers, ICT managers and security and multimedia specialists.

That followed complaints from the technology industry that they were facing a severe skills crunch and had been overlooked in the competition for exemptions to bring highly-prized workers through the border.

NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller said the job of deciding how the exemptions would be divvied up had yet to be finalised.

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Muller says a ballot would ensure exemptions were spread around.

But he expected an initial tranche of perhaps 200 exemptions might be allocated by a random ballet.

Professional body IT Professionals NZ would probably manage the process of ensuring applications by employers were for workers that met the Government’s criteria, he said.

Instead of inviting applications for all the exemptions in one go, they would probably be offered in tranches to see what the level of demand was and how that would be handled.

Muller expected the demand from employers for exemptions would exceed the number on offer, and that they would be rationed via a ballot.

That would ensure that large employers such as Xero or government departments did not get all the exemptions and that they were “spread around a bit”, he said.

“The industry would provide a ‘letter of exception’ to the employer, who could then use that when they worked through the actual visa process with the employee.”

Muller expected the ballot would be run by Immigration NZ, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, or another independent organisation.

He believed more exemptions would be needed but said the important thing was that a process for granting exemptions was being put in place.

“I'm confident that if the indications are that these are high-quality senior roles and that we need more of those, then we'll go through another process of trying to get more.

“The main thing here is that we're now in a process with Immigration. I think it'll be a lot easier to get an extension on the number.”

Muller said NZTech was pushing to have the design of the scheme in place this month, applications under way in February and the first exemptions issued in March.

“We are working really hard to get it into the first quarter.”

Some of the exemptions were likely to go to overseas workers who had already got employment contracts with New Zealand employers but who had been unable to come into the country, he said.