At a glance
- Draft proposals to regulate the employment of foreign nationals have been published for public comment.
- The targets will indicate the maximum number of foreign nationals that an employer in a particular sector is permitted to employ.
- The government is also proposing to set up agencies that will be able to provide lists of suitable local candidates for various positions.
There are proposed changes to the Employment Services Act 2014 in the pipeline. These are still in draft form and are still subject to public comment. The intention of these changes is to regulate the employment of foreign nationals by setting numerical targets per sector. The targets will indicate the maximum number of foreign nationals that an employer in a particular sector is permitted to employ. Once the maximum number of foreign nationals has been reached, an employer will not be permitted to hire additional foreign nationals. This will not, however, require employers to retrench foreign nationals already in their employ.
The government is also looking at setting up agencies that will be able to provide lists of suitable local candidates for various positions. Once these changes become law, when applying for work permits in respect of foreign nationals, an employer will have to demonstrate that they have done a diligent search for a local candidate but, despite that diligent search, they were unable to find a local candidate to fill the position.
The amendments will require there to be a skills transfer plan in place whereby employers will need to demonstrate that there is a plan in place for how the employer intends to equip a local candidate to perform the role in time.
The proposal is for there to be rules around the terms and conditions of employment of foreign nationals whereby the terms and conditions of a foreign national’s employment may not be less favourable than those of a comparable local employee.
There will be regulation of documentation relating to the employment of foreign nationals and the retention periods for such documentation.
In order to regulate the employment of foreign nationals the minister will be given a significant amount of power to make regulations, once these proposed changes come into effect.
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