New Zealand skills shortage list and the Green List: what employers need to know

For years New Zealand ran several occupation lists: a long-term skills shortage list, a regional list and a construction and infrastructure list. If your role appeared on one, the immigration process was simpler. Those lists were retired when the immigration system was rebuilt around the Accredited Employer Work Visa in 2022.

Their replacement is the Green List: a single list of roles the Government has decided are in sustained shortage and worth attracting migrants into. It is maintained by Immigration New Zealand and reviewed periodically, with roles added and occasionally removed.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. The list and its conditions change, so always check the live version on the Immigration New Zealand website before relying on it.

The Green List has two tiers, and the tier determines the residence pathway available to the worker.

• Tier 1 (Straight to Residence). Workers with a job or job offer in a Tier 1 role can apply for residence directly, without needing to work in New Zealand first. These are the roles the Government most wants to attract.
• Tier 2 (Work to Residence). Workers in a Tier 2 role can apply for residence after a period of work in New Zealand in that role, usually two years.

Every Green List role comes with conditions attached. Most specify a minimum qualification, registration or years of experience, and some carry a minimum salary. A candidate has to meet the conditions for the role, not just hold the job title. That is where many employers and candidates get tripped up.

The Green List sits alongside, not instead of, the AEWV. An employer still needs to be accredited and the job still needs a job check. What the list changes is what happens after that: an easier labour market test, and a clearer residence pathway that makes your offer far more attractive to an overseas candidate.

The list has been dominated by health, construction, engineering, trades, ICT and some agricultural and science roles. We will not reproduce it here because it changes; check the live list. But to give you a feel for it, roles such as the following have featured:

• Engineering: civil, structural, geotechnical, mechanical, electrical, electronics, chemical and materials engineers, plus engineering managers and some engineering technicians.
• Trades and technical: electricians, plumbers, fitters and turners, welders, diesel motor mechanics and various construction trades.
• ICT: software engineers, developers, ICT security specialists, database and systems administrators.
• Construction and project delivery: construction project managers, quantity surveyors, surveyors and project builders.
• Health, science and agriculture: a wide range of clinical roles, plus some agricultural, food and environmental science roles.

Notice what is largely absent: general management, sales, marketing, finance and supply chain leadership. Those are the roles many SMEs struggle to fill, but the Government does not consider them in national shortage. For those, the local market is the answer, and it is usually a good one when searched properly.

1. Find the occupation classification. INZ uses an occupation classification framework to define each role. Match your role's actual duties to a classification, not its title.
2. Check the live Green List. Search for the classification and note the tier.
3. Read the conditions. Qualifications, registration (for example with Engineering New Zealand), experience and salary requirements all apply to the candidate.
4. Confirm the job matches. The employment agreement and job description need to reflect the duties of that classification. If your "Maintenance Engineer" is really a maintenance fitter, they will be assessed as one.
5. Talk to a licensed immigration adviser if the answer is not obvious. Getting the classification wrong at job check stage costs months.

The Green List is the most talked-about route, but it is not the only one, and for some roles it is not the best one. Employers should at least know these exist before deciding a role is unfillable:

• Sector agreements. Some industries have negotiated agreements with the Government that allow hiring migrants into specific roles on agreed terms, sometimes at wage rates below the standard threshold. These have applied to sectors such as meat processing, seafood, dairy farming, construction and transport at various times. If you are in one of those sectors, check whether an agreement currently covers your role.
• Standard AEWV roles. A role does not need to be on the Green List to be filled through the AEWV. It simply faces the standard labour market test and wage requirements, with visa length and residence pathways depending on skill level and pay. Most management and professional roles fall here.
• Skilled Migrant Category residence. A points-based route to residence that a worker can pursue in their own right, based on skill level, qualifications, income and New Zealand work. Employers do not apply, but a job offer from an accredited employer is often a critical part of the worker's case.
• Working holiday and partner visas. Many capable people are already in New Zealand on visas that let them work for any employer. They hold work rights and can be hired like anyone else, which is why our candidate pool always includes them.

The right route depends on the role, the candidate and the current settings. That is a conversation for a licensed immigration adviser, and it should happen after the local market has been tested, not instead of it.

For Waikato businesses, the Green List is most useful for engineering and trades roles: automation and controls engineers for food and dairy processing, mechanical and electrical engineers, fitters, welders and electricians. If you have a genuine, sustained gap in one of those areas, the Green List makes overseas recruitment more realistic than it was under the old system, because the candidate can see a residence pathway.

Three practical cautions:

• Overseas hiring is slow. Accreditation, job check, visa processing and relocation add up to months. If the role is urgent, that is a problem. See how long recruitment takes.
• The local market often has the person. A qualified mechanical engineer working for a competitor in Te Rapa is not on any list and is not applying for jobs, but they can be approached. We would always test that route first.
• Retention is the real challenge. Migrants on a Work to Residence pathway are tied to the role for a period, but once residence is granted they are free to move. If your business is not a good place to work, you will lose them exactly when they become most valuable. Our guide on staff retention strategies applies doubly here.

The Green List is a Government view of national shortage, weighted towards roles the public system needs. It does not describe the shortages a Waikato SME actually experiences. In our work, the hardest roles to fill are rarely on any list: an Operations Manager who can run a 60-person plant and lead a lean programme, a Supply Chain Manager who understands both procurement and distribution, a Financial Controller who is comfortable in a manufacturing environment, a Sales Manager who can sell technical products to industrial customers.

These are not shortages of people so much as shortages of visibility. The people exist; they are employed, and they move quietly through networks rather than job boards. Solving that is a search problem, not an immigration problem, and it is the problem we spend most of our time on. If you are struggling with a role that is not on the list, that is exactly where we can help.