Franchises suffer as Immigration New Zealand changes rule interpretation

'... although the IAC mentioned above requires Immigration officers to consider each case “holistically” – looking for instance at the size of the operation, the organisation of the branch where the applicant works and so on – to decide how much responsibility they actually have, in fact we see them focusing on ticking off the Core Tasks of the job (according to ANZSCO) as not being performed by the applicant, even though the person actually exercises considerable skill to run a department of a large store.  We therefore see the ludicrous situation that someone who manages a High Street clothing shop with 2 other staff will be approved Residence, while another person with 20 staff to run, who is required to apply the complex policies of a division of a department store, will be declined.

Why is this situation so fatal?  Well, according to immigration Policy the ANZSCO is a Bible which lists every job that exists.  In the Skilled Migrant system, your job has to match some occupation on the ANZSCO.  In the case of retail, you are either  a Retail Manager – which is “skilled employment” and gets you points toward Residence – or you are a Retail Supervisor who runs a team of staff and whose job is not skilled enough, so you don’t get points.  And in almost all cases you must have skilled employment before they will give you Residence. In many cases whole application fail on this point alone.'