New Zealand music month goes boom!
It’s June, which means our beloved New Zealand Music Month has just finished. Which means lots of us are now in recovery from four weeks of album launches, parties and gigs. This isn’t quite the time or place to flush out our personal favs. But – as with everything – it’s got it’s own Facebook page and that gives you a pretty thorough survey, with everything from crooners to rappers to rockers and more. Bottom line: about 20% of radio airplay is now New Zealand music. 20 years ago, it was about 1%. Good outcome!
Putting the boom into building
New Zealand’s economy continues to grow, and one of the main drivers at present is a building boom. Or rather, a series of building booms. Christchurch – having had a series of earthquakes back in 2010 and 2011 – has had a major construction surge as thousands of houses and city buildings have been repaired and replaced. Total value: about $40 billion.
And as the Christchurch reconstruction peaks, a second boom is materialising in Auckland. And that’s with a capital B. Working In co-founder Scott Matheson was quoted in The Listener (one of our more respectable cultural weeklies): “Between now and 2020 [the boom] is looking to be $200 billion … five times that of Christchurch.”
It’s been referred to as “a wall of work” and – as in previous upswings in New Zealand – it’s going to be staffed in large part by migrant workers. There are already good processes to facilitate this, both for ensuring a good range of workers, and also to protect migrants from exploitation. Working In is at the forefront of ethical migration practices. And – with increasing industry calls to expand the Canterbury Skills Shortage List – it’s possible that the visa framework is going to keep getting better, too.
Booming education supports record migration
A recent update from Statistics New Zealand shows that the immigration doors remain wide open, with 5,330 new arrivals in March. That’s lower than in previous months, but net migration has hit record highs for 20 consecutive months, so it’s really the new normal.
What’s driving it? Two things. One, the economy continues to provide more jobs than people to fill them across various sectors, especially construction, health, tourism and hospitality. Great! Second, there has been a surge of students coming to New Zealand, and some of them have come unstuck. Unscrupulous (and often unregistered) agents in some countries have been overselling the benefits of tertiary training in residency applications. Many graduates, looking for residency, find out too late that their qualifications don’t appear on Immigration New Zealand’s skill shortage lists. Student visas aren’t really our core business, but all we can say is: check the creds of anyone who’s offering to help. Especially for money.
And remember, our team of dedicated migration advisors are all fully licensed, which means they’ve satisfied the New Zealand Government that they know the law and are trained in ethical migration. Get in touch now to start your visa assessment.
Boom! Fancy new government website for Immigration NZ
Here at Working International we see zillions of websites attempting to clarify the complicated rules and language of immigration. Nearly all of them fail. Not this one. It’s simple, intuitive and informative. Their approach is organise the information according to what the user wants to achieve, so it’s all about you. We’ve used the same design principle here for our visa pages, so – what else can we say? – it’s awesome. We like it for its clarity and logic. Just don’t mistake that for a DIY visa. That’s a world of pain. Here’s theirs. And here’s ours. You’re welcome. We’re here to help.
Check out jobs in New Zealand here. Check out your New Zealand visa here.
