There are mixed messages coming out of New Zealand’s job market at the moment that may well affect expats who plan to move to New Zealand during the current economic crisis. According to a Business NZ survey of 647 businesses a third say they plan to lay staff off, while another third say they are short of skilled staff. Of the businesses running apprenticeships, only 10% had plans to lay apprentices off.
The survey found that 33% of companies had more staff than they need and expats looking for work in New Zealand in manufacturing, wholesale, retail and hospitality, construction and utilities may have difficulty in securing work and therefore a visa to live in New Zealand. Of the 33% with surplus employees, two thirds are planning on making staff redundant and reducing the working hours for remaining staff.
The survey was carried out to enable businesses in New Zealand to push for government and industry training organization assistance with apprenticeships and training programs. Business NZ wants to see redundant workers retrained with the skills currently needed to fill positions amongst the 38.5% of businesses who claimed to have skills shortages. Obviously by using redundant workers to take up slack within the employment market there are going to be fewer jobs in New Zealand for expats.
From its highpoint in 2002 when 38,000 expats moved to live in New Zealand, levels of immigration have been dropping off. In 2007 only 5,500 migrants entered New Zealand and with the retraining of local workers to fill employment vacancies, 2010 may well see the lowest levels yet of expats moving to New Zealand.
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