work permit or?.......

[bazza]

Hi i am currently living in New Zealand and have fallen in love with the country fully. I hold a 23 month working holiday visa and have already worked 12 months of that, so therefore as i understand it ,i cannot work any longer. I am an Air conditioning/Refrigeration engineer and have had a job offer from a company in Christchurch,i have 5 years experience in this trade. I intend to stay in New Zealand for good now,so what is my next step? Do I apply for a work permit? If so how long does this last? Or is there another route which i should take? Sorry to bombard you with questions,but i would really appreciate your help as i find the whole immigration thing a bit confusing!

[MotherBear]

Bazza and welcome to MTNZ.

Have you looked on the Long Term Skill Shortage List to see if your job title is on there? If it is you can submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) and push forward for Permanent Residency .

This is a quick check for the Work Permit . route and these are the requirements . The WP is a temporary visa but can be renewed. If you have been working in NZ under one of the Work to Residence categories you can apply for PR after 2 years .

I don't know how much you've read up about immigration and the INZ so I don't want to bombard you with too much reading to begin with. Perhaps you can fill us in on how clued up you are and we can try to help with filling in the blanks.

[bazza]

Hi and thank you for your reply. I don't see my occupation on any list which does actually surprise me as i'm an Air Conditioning and refrigeration engineer and every employer i speak to says that they cannot find or it's very difficult to find good experienced engineers in this country. I really do just need to work now so was thinking that i would just take the quickest easiest route to a work visa. Am i right in thinking that i can get a 1 year work permit / visa and in doing this i will not need to send off for police clearance, the reason i want to avoid this is because i've heard that it can take a long time and i want to start work asap. am i taking the long way round to residency or citizenship doing things this way? what is the difference between residency and citizenship? sorry to bombard you with so many questions! thank you for your help

[MotherBear]

Hi Bazza

This....

Airconditioning and Refrigeration Mechanic
(342111)
National Certificate in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning (Level 4) OR National Certificate in Heating and Ventilation (Level 4)
National Certificate in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning (Level 4) OR National Certificate in Heating and Ventilation (Level 4)

...appears on the LTSSL. Would your job title come under this? It sounds very close.

From here under Trade Occupations.

If you can apply under the SMC you could still get a short term WP to enable you to start work a.s.a.p. Your PR application would run alongside your WP. I'm trying to check up on how long a WP has to be before you need medical and police certificate but parts of the INZ site are down, at my end anyway. I think it's the one-year one that you don't need them. You can get them to cover up to 3 years and renew them when they are about to expire.

If you wanted to apply for a police certificate and are originally from the UK, you can now get it turned around within 10 days (plus allowing time for the post, I guess) on here . It costs more but is quicker.

You would only be able to apply for NZ citizenship after holding PR for 5 years. It used to be 3 years but changed in the last couple of years. There really isn't a lot of difference between PR and citizenship other than being able to hold a NZ passport and a few other bits and pieces.