The Restaurant Association welcomes Immigration New Zealand’s announcement that ANZSCO – the role classifications used for visa applications – is to be replaced by a comparable but separate system.
Statistics New Zealand will be introducing a new New Zealand classification system called the National Occupation List (NOL). The first version of the NOL will be released on 20 November 2024.
The RA has worked hard for many years to draw attention to the issues with ANZSCO, which often results in employees wrongly classified into a job role that bears little match to their actual day to day position and causes frustration for employees and employers. We’ve asserted that there is a need for a realignment of the description to better fit current work situations and hence the announcement is welcome news.
Immigration New Zealand say it will take some time to transition to the new classification system and they will continue to use the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) until then and will provide a further update in 2025 when a switch over date is confirmed.
ANZSCO grades occupations according to skill level. ANZSCO skill levels range from 1 to 5, with 1 being the most skilled and 5 being less skilled. Unfortunately the database has many limitations. It is by no means an exhaustive list of all occupations; therefore a common complaint is that the ANZSCO descriptions are not compatible with many roles within our industry. This results in difficulty choosing the closest fit role description and a job specification mismatch when INZ makes the comparison between the employee’s role and that closest fit ANZSCO classification. Problems relating to the chef classification arise because there are a wide-ranging number of levels that exist in the kitchen – from executive chefs / head chefs, right down to commis chefs and apprentices (and every role in between). The ANZSCO fails to address the difference between the levels, nor the vast differences in role requirements related to the size of the business. Chefs are often re-matched as the lower skilled ‘cooks’ classification. Senior front of house roles are additionally also often wrought with problems. One of the reasons for this is that ANZSCO includes occupational classifications for junior roles such as waiters, baristas and bar attendants (classed as skill level 4 occupations) and senior management level roles (café and restaurant managers (skill level 2), however, it is silent on intermediate level management positions such as duty managers and maitre D’s. When assessing the closest fit, an application for a café or restaurant manager will often be re-assessed by INZ as a better match for a retail supervisor ANZSCO classification (a level 4 occupation).
We will keep members up to date with further developments around the National Occupation List (NOL).