A Queenstown employer who blew the whistle on the Government’s insane stance regarding skilled chefs wanting to work in New Zealand under a new visa says he’s ‘‘ecstatic’’ it’s listened.
‘‘It’s sad that I’m so excited about it — it’s sad that I need to be excited about that.’’
The employer, whom Mountain Scene’s agreed not to name, had tried to hire an international chef, with a decade of experience, including three years at culinary school, to work in Queenstown.
But because that chef didn’t hold a NZ Qualifications Framework certificate in cookery level 4, he was rejected by Immigration NZ.
On Sunday, following mounting public pressure, Immigration Minister Michael Wood announced that requirement will be dropped, effective from this coming Tuesday.
Wood says the requirement was initially introduced to reduce risks of wage and job inflation, but ‘‘we have heard the industry’s concerns’’.
‘‘Employers hiring chefs will now only be required to meet the median wage and market rate requirement, enabling employers to recruit from a larger pool of migrant chefs.’’
The resort employer says his company is reaching out to the chef, and he’s hoping he’s still available.
‘‘As far as he was concerned, getting in to NZ was no longer an option.’’
While it was positive news, he says the accredited employer work visa system’s still running painfully slowly, so while applications have been approved, there are still long delays in waiting for those people’s visas to be processed.
‘‘We’ve had one person arrive — we’ve been in it for a month — and we’ve got another 25 out there … it’s not raining in my office, I can tell you.
While he’d been “quietly confident” he’d have the bulk of those people in Queenstown by the end of this month, he believes that’s now “overly-optimistic”.
And it’s hard to say when they’ll arrive.
“You just don’t know when [INZ] are going to pick up their socks – they’ve removed this barrier, so that’s going to help us find people, but they’re just slow.”
