Immigration Service Helpful In Meeting ICT Skills

Immigration Service Helpful In Meeting Ict Skills Needs

The pragmatic approach taken by the New Zealand Immigration Service toward resolving specific skilled shortages in the ICT industry was acclaimed at the Annual General Meeting of the Information Technology Association of New Zealand (ITANZ).

ITANZ President Nick Lambert, Managing Director of IBM New Zealand Ltd, said ITANZ believes there will always be parts of the industry here that will need to meet skill shortages through good immigration policies.

"ITANZ regularly amends and updates skills lists for the NZ Immigration Service to reflect the actual position in New Zealand. Whilst the current list is significantly tighter now, there are still areas within the sector where skills shortages impact potential. We work closely with NZIS to operate their priority occupations list."

Mr Lambert said the ITANZ Letter of Support Scheme to expedite immigration requirements for ICT professionals continued to be well used. About 20 letters a month were being processed. Most applicants were coming from South Africa, the United Kingdom, USA and India, with increased requests from Zimbabwe.

"We are concerned that the industry downturn world wide and political platforms in New Zealand could result in a return to years past when government immigration policies were a real problem for the industry. We are keen to prevent that happening again so we engage regularly with NZIS officials at the policy level."

Officers elected at the annual meeting were:

President, Nick Lambert, Managing Director, IBM NZ Ltd, Vice President, David Irving, Chief Executive Officer, Synergy International Ltd, Immediate Past President, Tone Borren, Managing Director Diemer Kool & Associates. Executive Committee: Paul Cook, Senior Vice President, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Neil Butler, Managing Director, Optimation NZ Ltd, Mason Pratt, Managing Director, Provoke Solutions Ltd, Bruce Parkes, General Manager, Government & Industry Relations, Telecom NZ Ltd, John Barlow, Chief Executive Officer, Rex Ltd, Bennett Medary, Managing Director, The Simpl Group, Robert Gosling, Country Manager, Oracle NZ Ltd, Ross Peat, Managing Director, Microsoft NZ Ltd, and Chris Brice, General Manager New Zealand, Fujitsu NZ Ltd.

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