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By Lawrence Johnston

EXTRA staff are being recruited at New Zealand House in London, to cope with an increase in the number of skilled migrant applications that are now being submitted there.
The increased applications are due to the plummeting of the skilled migrant passmark, which at 110, has fallen by 20 points in the past month, and is now 85 lower than the category's first selection in February.
The new passmark makes it even easier than it did a month ago to qualify under the category without having a job offer in New Zealand.
That is even more the case if an applicant's spouse has the capacity to score some points for qualifications. All this has meant fewer UK citizens going to New Zealand and getting a job there then are applying through the Immigration Service's Wellington office.
Kevin Cameron, New Zealand Immigration Service London Branch Manager said that it was hoped that the increased London applications would not extend the processing time of people who had job offers. But for those who don't have job offers, there probably would be a delay till the new staff were recruited and trained.
The new staff are being interviewed and an official will be leaving New Zealand for London to train them early this month.
The skilled migrant selection process involves people assessing themselves to see whether they meet the minimum threshold of 100 points. If they do, they can submit an expression of interest (EOI) to New Zealand House, in London. This EOI goes into a pool of applications who are available for selection.
Every two weeks a number of people are selected from the pool. After checking, those selected are invited to apply for residence.
In the early days of the skilled migrant category, the proportion of EOIs coming from the UK, was 42 per cent. It later fell to about 20 per cent but has now increased to around 31 per cent.