[This post is in Taglish. Where helpful, I follow a paragraph with a rough translation. I don’t own the copyright to these photos, thanks and acknowledgment to the owners! Congrats to the NZPH Goodheart Foundation for the Filipino Migrant News Hero of the Year award, represented by Lani Larsen, Alicat Lozano, Edgar Rondon Calapati, Cora Laquindanum Sitchon and all the members of the Foundation. Mabuhay kayo! last na po: please support our podcast episode by clicking on the link, apologies for the imperfect default Taglish accent!]
MATAGAL KO NANG KILALA SI ROY (hindi nya tunay na pangalan). di ko alam kung sino sa amin ang nauna sa New Zealand, pero alam kong lampas 10 taon na sya rito, tulad ko.
(I’ve known Roy (not his real name) a long time. I don’t know who among us got to New Zealand first, but I do know that like me, he’s been here around 10 years or so.)
Like myself, Roy has also reached out for the supreme prize in migrating to NZ: permanent residency, as have thousands of temporary visa holders from all over. But the last two years have not been kind to work, visit and student visa holders, and of the nearly 89,000 successful visa holders last year (lowest in 10 years), very few will go on to become permanent residents.
it’s not for lack of trying. my friend Roy has worked in many different jobs, in different industries. All of his employers have had workers who’ve gone on to become permanent residents, but not in recent years. Additional requirements have made it too hard to make the final move before applying, and Roy has gone oh-so-close before his hopes were dashed. In other cases, he hurdled the additional requirements, but sadly didn’t earn enough to be invited to apply.
hindi ko naman sinasabing napagiwanan sya ng panahon, pero pahirap nang pahirap ang pag-apply nya sa NZ bilang work visa holder at permanent resident. Twing akala nyang nasasapol na nya mga requirements pangPR (permanent resident) bigla na lang itong babaguhin ng walang pasintabi (at kung meron man, napakaigsi ng palugit na binibigay).
(I’m not saying Roy’s been left behind by the times, but it’s getting harder and harder to apply in NZ as a work visa holder and permanent resident or PR. Every time he thinks he’s hurdled the PR requirements, the latter will suddenly be upgraded or leveled up, with very little or no notice at all.)
All his years in New Zealand, Roy has learned a lot and gained experience in becoming a professional migrant, but unfortunately for him and many others in his situation, practice doesn’t make perfect. Despite the encouraging invitation on the Immigration New Zealand website to “work and live (permanently) in New Zealand,” unless you have lotto level luck and have enough funds to adjust to changing rules, you can’t stay in the game. Why is this so?
IT’S NOT POLICY. or maybe it used to be policy, but not anymore. Until recently, whichever Government was in power, there was bound to be an anti-immigration shadow as long as Winston Peters was in Parliament. He never failed to use the migrant bogeyman (panakot) taking away jobs and wealth from Kiwis. But now Winston is gone (for good) and the eternal truth remains: New Zealand will always need migrant labor. So policy is not the problem.
IT’S NOT REQUIREMENTS. yes, Immigration New Zealand (the government agency tasked with screening and accepting all applicants for NZ visas) continues to raise wage requirements, based on the national median wage. Yes, INZ continues to insist on all sorts of tests to prove that New Zealanders aren’t available for jobs that nobody else (except migrants) wants. And yes, INZ continues to add language and other requirements (like IELTS) just to see how desperate we are before giving up.
But the labor market (supply and demand for skilled labor) pays as much as the market can bear, and as long as kabayan will provide skilled and profitable labor, we will be paid decently. Ultimately, migrants take jobs Kiwis aren’t willing to take, and IELTS and Pearson tests, though hard, are not impossible to pass.
THE UNEXPECTED REASON. A couple of years back, the government launched a cost-cutting and reorganization project for Immigration New Zealand, with disastrous results, Offices closed in Mumbai, Shanghai and lately Manila have not helped ease the traffic jam of visa applications. Seems that instead of coping with greater job demands caused by the Christchurch rebuild, Kaikoura rebuild and the economic growth experienced in NZ, Immigration NZ chose to shrink and reduce operations.
The result? Even before the covid pandemic, there has been a backlog of 30,000 PR applications, and you can just imagine how much this number will rise after Immigration NZ lifts the one year suspension of applications.
Imagine in your wildest dreams the greatest number of visa / case officers an agency like INZ will allow to handle this backlog of applications. Fifty? 75? 100? OK, 150? (this last number seems unlikely considering so many other functions of the agency). This means, best case scenario, each case officer handling 200 cases, each case requiring hundreds of man-hours and at least a couple of years of processing and deliberation.
And that’s not even considering the floodgate of new cases that are just itching to be submitted when (hopefully not if) the suspension lifts. At this rate, when can we expect to have the doors opened for us?
Ito po yung unexpected result of too much of a good thing. New Zealand is such a desirable place to live and work in, but is New Zealand ready for all of us?
[PS. Please pray for the permanent resident application of Roy and his family. They deserve it. Mabuhay po tayong lahat!]
