How The New Zealand Immigration Points System Works
In this article you will learn how the New Zealand skilled migrant immigration points system works and how it can help you to immigrate to New Zealand.
If you want to immigrate to New Zealand, then you need to check to see if you qualify for residence. Immigrating to another country is not just a case of packing up your bags and booking the next flight out. Each country has to ensure that each immigrant is going to add value to the country as a whole and not become a burden to the state. In other words it must be a win win situation : you get to move to the country of your dreams and the country gains a valuable citizen that can add value to society and the economy.
For this reason New Zealand Immigration has a points system for “rating” potential immigrants to the country. The more value you can add to the country, the more points you will gain. You are assessed over a wide spectrum of suitability criteria. Some of these criteria are : how many working years you have left, how healthy you are, what skills you can add to the work force, how scarce those skills are, if you have family that can also contribute to the New Zealand society, etc.
Let’s take a closer look at each criteria.
Skilled Employment in New Zealand
If you or your partner already have a job or job offer in New Zealand, then you can obviously add value to the country, so you will gain good points for that. It is however important to note that the work you do must be a skilled job and not just any menial job offer. Remember it’s all about adding value to the country. Menial jobs can be done by anyone. New Zealand is looking for workers that are specialised or have had specialised training in order to be able to the job. In an ideal world you will work in an area where New Zealand has a shortage of it’s own workers, so you will “fill the gap” so to speak.
New Zealand Immigration has a list of occupations where they have identified shortages in the Kiwi workforce. If your occupation is on the list, then you will be awarded bonus points for a job offer or current employment.
Education
The more education you have, the more skills you are able to add to the New Zealand workforce, the more points you will gain. As with skilled employment, the more scarce your education is, eg., a doctorate, the more points you earn.
Work Experience
It goes without reason to say that the better you are at your job, the more valuable you are. The only practical way for New Zealand immigration service measure that is by looking at the amount of years you have been working in your area of expertise. You then gain extra points for the length of time you have worked in that industry. You get bonus points if some of those years of experience has been gained while working inside the country as that means you understand the Kiwi way of doing things as well.
Age
The more working years you have ahead of you the more potential you have to help grow and add value to the economy. If you are close to retirement, it means that soon the country will have to look after you, instead of the other way around, so you earn progressively less points the older you become.
Family
If your partner also has work and qualifications, then he/she will also earn you extra points when applying to immigrate.
Then finally you will also earn extra points if you have direct family in New Zealand already as that means your ability to settle into the country is dramatically increased.
Losing points
There are a few factors that don’t technically lose you points, but can affect the final decision on whether you are allowed to immigrate to New Zealand of not. They are your health, your families health and your and your families character.
As you have seen throughout the article, the country is looking for valuable immigrants. If they assess that by letting you immigrate to the country you are going to become a drain on the health care system, then it would be unwise for them to approve your application. The same goes for your character – if you have a history of criminal behavior, then your application could be turned down as you then could be considered a “threat to society”.
As you can see, the criteria for awarding points is very fair and is based on the value you can add to the country as a whole. If you would like us to do a free assessment of your points, then please fill in the eligibility assessment form and we will calculate your points for you.
