The New Zealand Government is looking at targeting skilled migrants from Asian countries in order to boost the labour market as part of a major overhaul of New Zealand immigration policy.

The New Zealand Cabinet has initiated the move as part of a scheme to insure that the country has enough skilled workers to compete with other OECD countries, particularly in the Information Technology industry.

As well as taking pro active measures to increase the New Zealand workforce, other proposed changes include streamlined applications and application processing carried out in New Zealand, rather than locally employed staff in other countries, where problems of language and administration styles have proved to be a hindrance in the past.

The scheme has the support of Business NZ chief executive, Phil O’Reilly, who commented: “We need to go out and act like we are the best place for [skilled Asian migrants] and a partnership of government and business to do that is precisely the right way of achieving that.”

However, members of the Trade Union Council have opposed the plan, stating that the hiring of local workers should be the country’s priority. But Immigration Minister David Cunliffe confirmed his stance on recruitment of skilled workers stating: “Our immigration policy has always been… that we target skills first and we are colour blind.”