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By Lawrence Johnston

PEOPLE whose skilled migrant applications have narrowly failed to meet the passmark, will now remain in the pool for potential future selection for twice as long as before. The move which doubles the period of availability for selection from three to six months, will apply to expressions of interest (EOIs) - the preliminary application stage - submitted on or before June 3.
Approved by New Zealand Immigration Minister Paul Swain, the provision means that all EOIs submitted on or between December 17 and March 3 will not be withdrawn from the pool before September 3.
Equally, all EOIs submitted on or between March 4 and June 3 will not be withdrawn from the pool until six months from the date they were originally submitted.
New Zealand Immigration Service London Branch Manager, Kevin Cameron said: "There are good applications in the pool, that are not getting selected within three months.
Rather than lose them when they automatically drop out after that period, we've extended the period during which they can remain in the pool.
An 150 pointer tends to be a good application, and we didn't want to find that we'd thrown them out, then when the passmark say fell to 150, find that they were no longer in the pool, and that they would have to submit another EOI."
The skilled migrant passmark last month was 155, having fallen steadily since the category was introduced. If it drops below 150 it might start to fluctuate between 140 and 150, because 140 is the stage where an applicant could be selected without a job guarantee.