New Zealand Introduces Care Workforce to Residence Visa (2024) – Extends Invitation to Foreign Workers

The initial settlers of New Zealand were the Ngāpuhi people from the Far North tribe. The pioneering explorer to discover New Zealand was the courageous ancestor, Kupe. Employing the stars and ocean currents for navigation, he embarked across the Pacific aboard his waka hourua (voyaging canoe) from his ancestral Polynesian home of Hawaiki.

Subsequent to Kupe's journey, numerous waka hourua followed, arriving at different locations in New Zealand over the succeeding centuries. The Polynesian migration was carefully orchestrated, with many waka hourua embarking on return voyages to Hawaiki.

The first European to sight New Zealand was Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. He was on an expedition to discover a great Southern continent ‘Great South Land’ that was believed to be rich in minerals. In 1642, while searching for this continent, Tasman sighted a ‘large high-lying land’ off the West Coast of the South Island.

Abel Tasman annexed the country for Holland under the name of ‘Staten Landt’ (later changed to ‘New Zealand’ by Dutch mapmakers).

Today, Māori are part of an iwi (tribes), a group of people who are descendants of a common ancestor and associated with a certain region or area in New Zealand. Each iwi has their own hapū (sub-tribes). Iwi can trace their entire origins and whakapapa (genealogy) back to certain waka hourua. The seven waka hourua that arrived to Aotearoa were Tainui, Te Arawa, Mātaatua, Kurahaupō, Tokomaru, Aotea and Tākitimu. 

Care Workforce Work to Residence Visa

With this visa you can

• Live, work and study in New Zealand.
• Include your partner and dependent children aged 24 or younger in your visa application.

Prove your identity by providing:

• 1 acceptable photo, and
• a scan of the personal details page of your passport 

If you, or anyone else included in your application, are aged 17 or older you must provide a police certificate from:

• all the countries you are a citizen of, and
• any other country you have stayed in for 12 months or more over the last 10 years, even if it was not all in the same stay.

You, and your partner if they are included in your application, need to show us you have an acceptable standard of health.

• This means you, and anyone else included in your application, must complete a chest X-ray and medical examination.

When you apply, you must hold a work visa or a Critical Purpose Visitor Visa that allows you to work

We check our records to confirm that, for the full 24 months before you apply, you held:

• 1 or more work visas
• a Critical Purpose Visitor Visa that allowed you to work, or
• an Interim Visa which we gave you when you:
  • applied for another work visa, or
  • a Critical Purpose Visitor Visa that allowed you to work.

You must have worked in the care workforce for 24 months or more, and been paid NZD$28.25 an hour or more (or the equivalent salary)

The documents you can provide include:

• previous or current employment agreements
• job contracts
• a summary of income from Inland Revenue.

Your job

You must have worked in New Zealand in care workforce role as a:

• Māori Health Assistant — Kaiawhina (Hauora)
• Disabilities Services Officer
• Residential Care Officer
• Aged or Disabled Carer
• Nursing Support Worker
• Personal Care Assistant
• Therapy Aide
• Child or Youth Residential Care Assistant, or
• Diversional Therapist.

If your role is removed from the care workforce list after you start working, your time in that role still counts towards your 24 months.

You must also have been paid NZD$28.25 an hour or more (or the equivalent salary).

Calculating 24 months’ work

You must have worked in a care workforce role for at least 24 months in the 30 months before you apply. You can start counting your 24 months’ work any time on or after 29 September 2021.

To make up the 24 months you can:

• have been working in care workforce roles for 24 months
• count annual, bereavement or other leave you are legally entitled to, such as parental leave
• complete it in several stretches — for example, you could work for 2 lots of 12 months with a gap of 6 months in between
• work for some of the time in a role that is not in the care workforce, but it must be:
  • in Tier 2 of our Green List of in-demand roles
  • a transport sector role, or
  • a role that paid at least twice the median wage.