This report consists of two research projects that describe and analyse some of the outcomes of the General Skills Category (GSC) policy. Part A is an exploratory research project focusing on the experiences and attitudes of employers who offer applicants a job. This research aimed to identify and discuss outcomes of awarding points for a job offer to a migrant. The research explored characteristics of the employers such as their size, type of business and industry; whether the job offer was taken up; the reasons for selecting the migrant; the migrants’ performance in the job and the sorts of barriers they faced.
Part B made use of a GSC proxy and 2001 Census data to document the types of labour market outcomes that could be achieved by GSC applicants. This research examined how factors such as age, region of origin, educational qualifications and English language ability impact on migrant labour market outcomes and assists with determining whether the current points system categories lead towards attracting people likely to participate in the labour market. Recent GSC principal applicants were required to have at least a vocational or university qualification, and be a ‘Modest User’ of English at the time of the Census in March 2001. For comparative purposes data on non-English speaking migrants and those with no or school only qualifications was included.
Methodology
1.5.1 Part A: Survey of Employers
This project involved a quantitative analysis of two main datasets. These datasets were 387 respondents to a telephone survey of employers and the Immigration database of 4,674 principal applicants with a job offer who were approved for residence in 2001/2002. An external and independent contractor conducted the employer survey. The contact details of employers were obtained from the files of 1,020 GSC principal applicants with job offers who had been approved for residence between July 2001 and June 2002. Data from existing Immigration databases was appended to survey findings to enable further analysis.
At the time of the study, the files from the London immigration branch (which processes applications from Africa, Central and Western Europe and the United Kingdom) were inaccessible as they were in transit to New Zealand. Therefore, the London files were excluded from the population. Yet, many migrants from these regions made it into the survey, mainly as a result of having applied while onshore in New Zealand.
Ninety-three employers had never heard of the migrant (‘non-qualifiers’) and 387 employers completed the survey, giving a total response of 480 employers or 47 percent. The refusal rate was 13 percent. The average length of the telephone interview with each employer was 15 minutes. Up to six call-backs were made to each contact. Refer to Appendix C on page 147 for the questionnaire.
Selected characteristics of migrants in the survey were compared with the population of migrants with job offers to obtain an indication of how representative of the population the survey findings were. On a number of dimensions, including onshore/offshore status, gender, age, number of people per application, and region of origin, characteristics of the sample were similar to the population parameters. Therefore, we can be confident that the survey findings can be generalised to the population of GSC migrants with a job offer who were approved in the 2001/2002 financial year.
1.5.2 Part B: Analysis of Census Data
The methodology for Part B was a quantitative analysis of unit record data from the 2001 Census. The project examined labour force and income data using as variables characteristics that were a proxy for GSC principal applicants.
The population of study comprised New Zealand born and overseas born people between the ages of 25 and 44 years who were usually resident in New Zealand at the time of the Census. The variables that were used as a proxy for GSC principal applicants were: language (those who could speak English or those who could not), qualifications (university, vocational, or no or school only qualifications), and age (25 to 29 years, 30 to 34 years, 35 to 39 years or 40 to 44 years). Other variables that were included in the analysis were region of origin, duration of residence in New Zealand, labour force participation and income.
A limitation with this approach is that overseas born people included in the analysis may have entered New Zealand through residence categories other than the GSC. The spouses and partners of GSC principal applicants will also be included, as will students and people with temporary work permits who gave a New Zealand address as their usual address when filling out the Census form. This is unavoidable, as the Census does not identify an individual’s residence status.