Migration rules ‘marginal’
Rule changes aiming to give the Government greater control over migration will have little or no impact on arrivals, economists at one of New Zealand major banks warn.
On April 19 Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse announced a series of changes to work visa settings, including new pay band components for skilled migrant visas.
Woodhouse said the changes would ‘‘further control the number’’ of net migrants coming to New Zealand.
After consultation, the new rules were set to come into effect later in 2017, Woodhouse said.
But ASB has made no changes to its predictions as a result of the announcement.
It recently forecast that net migration would stay above 70,000 well into 2018 and stay at around 55,000 by the end of 2019, sending New Zealand’s population to 5 million.
ASB economist Daniel Snowden said the changes would make no difference to those coming in to New Zealand in the short term and in the medium and long term the change would be ‘‘at the margin.’’
Longer term it was possible that there would be some impact but the degree of change would only be able to be assessed once the changes were in force, Snowden said.
‘‘It’s not going to change the current picture.’’