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New research shows the benefit of immigration to New Zealand, Minister of Immigration, David Cunliffe said this week. Findings of the report showed an increased focus on attracting skilled migrants and a well-balanced spread of countries of origin and regional settlement within New Zealand.
"This provides evidence that the current immigration programme is delivering benefits to the New Zealand economy," Mr Cunliffe said.
Thousands of nurses and midwives are still being hired from the world's poorest countries to work in the UK in spite of government attempts to restrict recruitment by private agencies, the Guardian revealed.
The Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George said the practice of hiring from Africa and other underdeveloped countries was destroying efforts to fight Aids, tuberculosis and other epidemic diseases. Losing trained medical staff can have a huge impact on poor countries that have high burdens of disease and chronically understaffed hospitals.
The US House of Representatives adopted new immigration legislation, including a measure to set up vast border fences that has strained ties with Mexico, late on Dec. 16.The bill was adopted in a 239-182 vote, and deprived President George W. Bush of his proposed guest worker programme."The United States has a rich immigrant background and continues to benefit from the arrival of law-abiding citizens of other cultures and nationalities. But in this age of terrorism we cannot be lax when it comes to controlling our borders," House speaker Dennis Hastert said when the bill passed.
Some contractors were still waiting for shearers to confirm their availability for Christmas, said the past president of the New Zealand Shearing Contractors' Association (NZSCA), Ron Davis. The industry was short of shearers at this time of the year. "This has been the trend for the last 10 years, and it has just built up.
The UK Government is introducing a new immigration category that allows religious workers in non-preaching roles to come to the UK to work for up to two years. This will cover workers whose duties include performing religious rites - such as reading the scriptures aloud or tending to the deities - but not preaching to a congregation.
A Senate-passed measure to provide additional foreign worker visas for the high-tech and specialty fields was dropped from a budget bill that passed the House early Dec. 19, disappointing technology and manufacturing companies in search of skilled workers. The Senate plan would have allowed 30,000 more of the popular H-1B visas each year and increased fees for those visas to help trim the budget deficit. Congress capped the six-year H-1B visas at 65,000 per year in 2004. The cap already has been reached for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.