Dawn Chorus: Not-so-cold turkeys

TLDR: The Government has unveiled what it calls a ‘rebalancing’ of migration settings to offer new and faster pathways to residence for higher paid migrants.

But it held off forcing low wage temporary migrant employers in hospitality, tourism and aged care to pay the new $27.76/hour median wage threshold for at least 12 months.

Labour’s decision not to go full cold turkey on low wage migration reflects the political pressure of being behind National in the polls and facing calls from employers in Covid-affected industries for relief from higher wage inflation. See more analysis of the migration ‘rebalance’ below the paywall fold and in the podcast above.

Elsewhere in the news overnight:

• US inflation fell to an annual rate of 8.3% in April from 8.5% in March, but the result was higher than economists’ forecasts of around 8.1%¹ 8.5% so wholesale interest rates rose a bit and the Nasdaq fell another 2%;

• The European Central Bank’s President Christine signalled in a speech the ECB would have to hike its official rates from below 0% in late July to fight inflation that hit 7.5% in April; and,

• Ukraine turned off a gas pipeline for a third of the Russian gas that goes through Ukraine to Europe, citing safety problems because Russian backed troops had started siphoning gas off the pipeline.

  

  The politics of weaning the tourism, hospitality, retail and aged care sectors off temporary migration are tough. Photo by Esther Lin on Unsplash

Going not so-cold-turkey low wage guest workers

PM Jacinda Ardern and Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi yesterday announced the full reopening of the border from July 31 and the long-awaited migration ‘rebalancing’ at a BusinessNZ event.

The rebalancing included:

• a new Green List of skilled occupations with more guaranteed pathways residence;

• the exemption until April 2023 of a range of Covid-affected sectors from new requirements to pay guest workers at least the median wage of $27.73/hour;

• those exempt sectors will have to pay at least $25/hour; and,

• new rules reducing work rights for international students studying for non-degree level courses.

The changes are aimed at reducing the use of low wage migrant labour, but have not gone all the way to weaning the tourism, hospitality, retail and aged care sectors off temporary migration. The politics was too tough for the Government, along with pressure of high inflation elsewhere.

Useful longer reads

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Here’s Adam Tooze’s latest Chartbook on how well the military industrial complex is doing right now.

ka kite ano

Bernard

My apologies for the shorter Chorus today. My laptop died this morning, so I have done it it on my phone. There is more detail in the podcast attached.

1. Corrected from 8.5%. My fat fingers on the phone. Thanks to subscribers for picking it up.