The 2014 budget contains an allocation of funding specifically aimed at ensuring Canterbury employers are compliant with New Zealand’s immigration and employment laws.
There have been concerns raised (particularly around the construction sector) that due to the numbers of migrant workers arriving into Canterbury to support the recovery, that there may well be an incentive for employers to engage in exploitation of migrant workers. We have already come across cases where some offshore recruiters and local Licensed Immigration Advisers are engaging in activity that is clearly taking advantage of migrant workers coming into the region, especially from the Philippines.
An amount of approximately NZ$7 million has been allocated over the next four years to fund the addition of six new labour inspectors and seven Immigration New Zealand (INZ) staff with a mandate to investigate and “stamp out” migrant exploitation and unlawful practices.
It is expected that over the next 18 months the new staff will undertake an additional 20 investigations into cases that are high profile or involve serious breaches. Importantly however, funding has also been allocated to rollout of an employment standard audit programme for businesses associated with the rebuild.
Lane Neave expects that this audit programme will include the need for employers to demonstrate adequate HR systems for tracking and checking migrant workers’ New Zealand employment rights. The introduction of additional labour inspectors also points towards future focus on this aspect of employer compliance, so with this budget, employers have been warned.
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