Covid-19 gave Max Gutry the unexpected gift of six weeks’ work in Central Otago.
Looking back, Gutry says it was a novel and rewarding experience. Looking forward, as a member of the Gen-Z generation, it is highly unlikely this will be his last unexpected job.
Tej Prakash donned protective gear and went to work every day throughout the Covid lockdown. The 33-year-old permanent resident, who came to New Zealand with his wife in 2014, trained as a physiotherapist in India but works in aged care here. He is one of the huge number of migrant workers who sustain New Zealand’s elderly care workforce; a sector wondering what its future is now that the Government has announced an "immigration reset".
For the present, the lack of willing Kiwi workers means Prakash has no shortage of work. What would make his and his children’s future so much sweeter here would be the proximity and support of extended family. Tragically, last month, even while Prakash was caring for elderly New Zealanders, his father caught and succumbed to Covid, in India.
Distinguished Prof Paul Spoonley is talking by phone as he travels through rural Hawkes Bay. A much-awarded sociologist and researcher specialising in immigration, he pulls ideas and facts out of the air at will — until the phone loses reception, his voice momentarily stutters and the line fills with silent static.
It is an apt image for the effect the Covid-19 global pandemic has had on migration to New Zealand. For much of the John Key years, and for the first three years of Jacinda Ardern’s prime ministership, visitors and migrants were the fuel in the country’s economic engine. Up until March, 2020, more than seven million people were arriving in New Zealand each year. Among them, on average, 88,000 permanent or long-term working-age migrants. That was almost half as many again as the number of school leavers entering the workforce each year. It created plenty of jobs, soaked up myriad vacancies, added valuable cultural colour but did nothing for productivity. It also added to the enormous upward pressure on house prices and the downward pressure on wages and skills.
Covid came and the border slammed shut.
Suddenly, net annual migration was 6600, compared with 91,000 the previous year.
And then, last week, the Government announced that the tap would not be turned on again — not as wide anyway. An "immigration reset" would see the migrant flow recalibrated and reduced, particularly for those would-be migrants classed medium to low-skill.
"The volume was huge," Prof Spoonley says when cellphone service is restored.
"The volume of temporary and permanent workers coming here over the past seven years was probably unsustainable."
As well as putting pressure on infrastructure, he says, it made the country too reliant on overseas workers; a weakness fully exposed by the sudden post-March 25, 2020, dearth of fruit pickers, fishers, baristas, ski lift attendants ...
And the focus on cheap foreign labour diverted attention from possible improvements in efficiency or investments in new technology that could have increased productivity. On Thursday, the Productivity Commission released a report showing New Zealand’s productivity is among the lowest in the 38-nation OECD. We work more hours but produce goods and services worth 20% less per hour on average than countries including Australia, Canada, Ireland, Korea and the United States. Long-term productivity has been sacrificed for short-term profitability.
All of which, Prof Spoonley says, is preventing New Zealand preparing for an entirely different and fast-approaching future.
Covid is speeding up the fourth industrial revolution, a massive increase in job automation. That, combined with sweeping demographic changes — large numbers of Boomers entering retirement at the same time that New Zealand’s fertility rate has dropped below replacement level — means workers of the future will need specialised skills and loads of flexibility to negotiate a work landscape that will soon be unrecognisable from a 2021 vantage point.
It is into this discombobulated milieu that, last week, the Economic Development Minister Stuart Nash, on behalf of the then-unwell Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi, announced the game-changing immigration reset.
"Covid-19’s threat ... has presented a once-in-a-generation chance to look at how current immigration policy can better balance the need for foreign labour with the need to encourage incentives to upskill local labour and develop more advanced methods of operating."
The reset will reduce overall immigrant numbers, make it harder for employers to take on overseas workers where there are not genuine skill shortages and target wealthy investors and highly-skilled workers.
The ministers cited American space innovator LeoLabs as an example of what was sought. In 2019, LeoLabs, in collaboration with Kiwi firm Ruamoko Solutions, built in Naseby a new-tech space radar that tracks satellites and low-orbit space junk.
This week, a LeoLabs spokesperson told the Weekend Mix "the radar presence and the services it provides have helped develop the multi-billion dollar NZ space sector".
Other comment, since the speech, has not been so glowing.
The reset has been accused of scape-goating migrants for problems with housing, infrastructure and working conditions.
Those representing the dairy, horticulture, viticulture, tourism and hospitality industries have been among voices of concern.
Several people, including Queenstown Chamber of Commerce chief executive Ruth Stokes, said the plan lacked detail and was full of generalisations.
Apples and Pears New Zealand chief executive Alan Pollard said the idea that more pay would solve a worker shortage was "utter nonsense".
"The Government consistently fails to identify where these workers will miraculously appear from.
"If this is not resolved with urgency, growers are likely to leave the industry and permanent jobs could be lost."
Faafoi says the reset is not anti-immigrant nor anti-refugee.
"Migrants will always be an important part of New Zealand’s mix, and that includes temporary migrant workers ... The reset mix also remains committed to welcoming new New Zealanders to this country under the UNHCR Refugee Quota programme."
More work needs to be done on the reset detail, Faafoi says. That has begun with the Productivity Commission being tasked with investigating what immigration settings would best serve the country’s economic growth and its citizens’ well-being.
Following public consultation, the commission will report back to government by the end of next April.
Prof Spoonley thinks it is the lack of detail about the reset that is causing most concern.
His own concern is whether anyone, in business or government, is trying to get the big picture on the country’s future immigration policy.
"We need to get sectors, employers and councils in the room with the Government and with others who understand the way in which our economy and society are heading," Prof Spoonley says.
"I don’t think anyone is being particularly strategic at the moment or thinking long-term."
There are two things the Government should do immediately, he says.
An amnesty should be issued to temporary visa-holders already in the country, enabling them — as long as they have paid employment and good character — to become permanent residents.
Steps should also be taken to retain workers who might be poached by Australia.
"We’ve opened a travel bubble with Australia. It has exactly the same labour shortages that we do, and they pay more ... So, the Government are going to have to move to retain skilled workers in particular."
Prof Spoonley’s bigger concern, however, is that two "hugely important issues" get addressed in the long-term immigration reset.
The first is the need to look at migrant workers’ wider needs if we want to retain them and their skills.
"My concern is that too much emphasis would be given to economic factors."
People do not migrate as individuals, Prof Spoonley explains, but as part of a wider web of family and community relationships.
"Often, we pick them because of their qualifications, experience and the amount of capital they bring and then do very little to help them settle once they are here.
"Families matter. This means not just having your immediate family here but also the provisions for others, especially parents.
"Those things will keep people here and keep them happy."
It is an issue Prakash is painfully aware of.
"I have been working in elder care for more than five years," he says.
"I feel privileged and very happy to be part of elder care ... I feel it’s a service to help them in all their activities of daily living like feeding, administering meds, assisting them with walking, showering, personal care and looking after their holistic well being."
He longs to have his and his wife’s extended family closer.
But at the start of this month, getting both his parents here became an impossible dream.
On May 1, after a desperate, too-long search for an available ventilator bed, his father, who had caught Covid, died in hospital, in Andhra Pradesh — one of an estimated 1.6million Indians who have died of the virus.
"It has been devastating. I couldn’t travel home to see him. It’s been very heartbreaking to me and my family."
Then, Prakash’s mother and sister were bedridden with the virus.
During the past week, they have begun improving.
He would like to find a way to bring them here.
"Especially to spend time with my young kids and help look after their needs."
Prof Spoonley says the other important issue, in a fast-changing world with an older demographic and fewer migrant workers, will be getting New Zealand workers to fill vacancies.
Young people soon to enter the work force face three daunting statistics: 40% of the jobs that currently exist will likely have disappeared within a decade; within their working lifetime they are likely to have about 16 different jobs or careers; and, 65% of the jobs they will do have not yet been invented.
"To date, we haven’t planned for expanding parts of the economy or labour market, we’ve just turned to migrants for a short-term fix.
"We are going to need to reskill or upskill lots of New Zealand workers."
Prof Spoonley suggests we already have a successful model to turn to; the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme.
Each year, under the RSE scheme, about 14,000 Pacific Island workers come to New Zealand to help fill seasonal horticulture and viticulture vacancies. They are supported to settle and work in what are often quite foreign environments compared with home.
Faafoi says the RSE scheme will continue beyond the reset, as part of New Zealand’s commitment to its Pacific neighbours.
But that will still leave many vacancies, old and new.
"The question is how do you increase labour market mobility, which will involve re-skilling and up-skilling but also geographical mobility?" Prof Spoonley asks rhetorically.
"The RSE scheme helps with accommodation, transport and pastoral care. Why not do the same for local workers?
"It’s a good model for what we should be doing for New Zealand workers; incentivising through a liveable wage or subsidised accommodation."
Gutry studies a mix of commerce and sports nutrition as well as fitting in several martial arts gym sessions a week. He is eyeing a future as a nutritionist to elite martial arts athletes.
He says he is not phased by the prospect of a fast-changing labour market.
"I think it is just natural that as we become more efficient and expand our potential that many more opportunities will open up."
But then he concedes that some advances he has heard are in development, such as computer chips integrated into human neural networks, could require more than just incremental upskilling, even for an elite sports nutritionist.
Would New Zealand offer the support for that? Would the country retain his skills?
Gutry is of Russian migrant stock. Born and raised a New Zealander, but considering his options.
"I’m not saying New Zealand does not have good athletes. But if I follow this path, I would probably want to be living in a hot spot for top athletes."
Prakash is also considering his future.
"I hope to be able to provide a good life for my kids and also be there for my family when they need me.
"I am hoping and praying that I will be able to fulfil these while living in New Zealand. But it can be very tough for people like us."
