Jamie Smith

Hi all

The new Skilled Migrant Category for NZ gives points for work experience.

NZIS have decided that work experience must come from "comparable labour market". Alternative is you could have worked for multinational company domiciled in those countries AND be citizen/PR of those countries.

What's "comparable"?

Well, only some countries have been identified as being comparable, but NZIS are not saying which ones.

It's clear froma recent seminar that NZIS want to announce the country list and weather the storm, rather than have to explain their thinking in public and consult with industry.

So of course some will accuse them of ethnic bias if their country is not on the list.

My main concern is that they are not prepared to explain their methodology in public.

This will trigger allegations of a) hidden agendas and b) immigration policy being used to silence vocal politicians who score votes from immigration debate.

And so it goes on....