Headed by new chairman Dr Ganesh Nana, the commission has been tasked with capitalising on the pause in immigration inflicted by the pandemic to review the industries, regions, firms and skill sets most reliant and affected by immigration.
The review comes after an earlier commission report released late last year called for a setting revisit.
But Federated Farmers immigration spokesman Chris Lewis says he is concerned immigration minister Chris Faafoi was hinting at the primary sector when he spoke about a review that would better understand the economic and other impacts of New Zealand’s immigration system.
Concerns exist in Government over reliance upon migrant staff putting downward pressure on wages and large increases in net migration still not addressing skills shortages in some industries.
Lewis maintains NZ’s agricultural evolution has been based on successive waves of migrant workers, most recently including the likes of Filipino workers in the dairy sector.
“And in the last three months there has been a lot of upward pressure on wages. Farmers are spending more on staff including housing, pay and conditions.”
His claim is supported by last year’s Federated Farmers-Rabobank remuneration report that showed dairy farm workers had received on average a pay rise of 9.7% over the year, putting them on a mean salary of $57,125, and dry-stock staff on an average of $57,125, up 7.6%.
This compared to the national average salary based on a 40-hour week of $53,040, up 4.3% last year.
“And there is still a shortage across the board of staff,” Lewis says.
“Typically, a few years ago Farmsource might have had 300-400 adverts for staff on it. It now has 1100 consistently. And farmers have upped their game in terms of their pay and quality of job they are offering.”
The skilled migrant visa category is also up for a separate review.
Lewis says the hardest area to source staff from locally was lower-level farm assistants who were reliable and hard working.
“The various sectors have done what they can to encourage more New Zealanders to work on farms, including training and recruitment initiatives and increases in wages, but some roles and regions remain critically short on suitable staff.
“We just encourage Government to work with the right people before they go and announce any changes from such a review,” Lewis says.
The horticultural sector is also looking warily at the review process as it grapples with record-breaking crops in a tight labour market, also constrained by limited Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) staff.
Chris Faafoi has maintained the review is not targeting RSE scheme. He told Radio NZ the government remains committed to the programme.
HortNZ chief executive Mike Chapman says it is reassuring Government remains committed to the RSE scheme, but the organisation would be re-submitting to the commission about how critical the scheme is.
“I am not so sure the commission is as understanding of the dynamics of harvest and how important the scheme is.”
He referred to the earlier commission report that attempted to identify “frontier firms” that receive priority in immigration settings.
“But instead of investing in mythical and untested ‘frontier firms’, NZ needs to be investing in what works today. In health and education NZ, like many countries, is desperately short of skilled workers and that is where our focus should be, on attracting nurses, doctors, teachers and the skilled workers required for the primary sector, as well as seasonal workers.
“NZ needs to get its head out of the immigration sand and open our orders up to the workers we need, and we need to do this really soon.”
