Chinanews.com, November 24. According to New Zealand Tianwei.com, citing tvnz news, since the outbreak, nearly 6,000 overseas workers and their families have been allowed to enter New Zealand through basic worker terms.
The industry hopes that the government will relax restrictions and allow more people to enter the country to help the economy recover.
Since the epidemic, New Zealand has closed its borders to almost all travelers, except citizens, residents, and partners or dependent children. In addition, crew members, seafarers and diplomats in the new country are also exempted from entry.
The remaining people allowed to enter are basically overseas workers.
Basic overseas workers can apply to the New Zealand Immigration Service for "other basic workers" category visas, and they can enter the country after approval.
In order to cope with the labor shortage, many industry organizations called on the government to ease entry restrictions and ease the labor dilemma in the fruit and vegetable growing industry.
According to the evaluation guidelines of the Immigration Bureau, applicants for basic worker visas need to meet a series of criteria.
Recently, the released data detailed the number of employers who applied for the introduction of such workers, the success rate, and the number of workers exempted from entry. The data covers the period from June 18 to November 12.
From the perspective of the number of people granted entry exemption, the R&D sector contributed a higher proportion, followed by fishing and sports/entertainment. These three categories were 1377 (33.4%), 777 (18.9%) and 512. (Accounting for 12.4%).
The above three categories account for nearly two-thirds of exempted immigration workers.
Only one worker is exempted in the farming industry, which is suffering from a shortage of workers. There are 2 in the tourism/hotel industry, 3 in the mining industry, and 7 in the forestry and retail industry.
Among the industries most likely to be granted exemptions, film/TV topped the list with 86%, oil and gas ranked second with 80%, and research and development ranked third with 77%.
During the period from June 18 to November 12, the New Zealand government received a total of 1,646 immigration exemption applications, of which 1,581 were processed and 746 were approved, accounting for 47%, involving 4117 workers.
A spokesperson for the Immigration Bureau said these figures do not include workers’ families.
As of November 16, the total number of workers and their families approved was 4835.
Adding in the 1,135 workers and their family members who entered the country before June 18, the total number of workers and family members who have been exempted from entry under the "Other Basic Workers" project has reached 5970.