Alexander Laurenson runs Victor Alexander & Co., a research and documentation service based in the Waikato. This piece was prompted by his partner's own experience navigating the AEWV process as a veterinary nurse.

The Accredited Employer Work Visa process is widely known as one of the more demanding paths to residence in New Zealand. It brings long processing times, real compliance costs, and no guarantee at the end of it. For skilled migrants working just outside the Green List, there's a further frustration on top of that: watching a role sit right next to yours on an organisation chart, doing comparably essential and demanding work, while only one of you has a fast-tracked path to residence.

Watching this process from the outside, as their partner, was its own kind of stressful. The uncertainty, the paperwork, the sense that a genuinely qualified professional was being put through something disproportionate to what the role requires. The confusion extends beyond the applicant themself; even understanding what pathway applied to their situation took real, sustained effort, at a time when clarity should have been the easiest part.

What Changed

New Zealand's Green List has recently been broadened considerably for the health sector. It's no longer just doctors, dentists, and specialists at the top of the profession; Enrolled Nurses, Dental Therapists, Dental Technicians, and Anaesthetic Technicians have all been added, alongside several other allied and support roles. The list has clearly moved toward recognising that essential healthcare isn't delivered by the top-qualified professional alone; it's delivered by a team.

Veterinary care hasn't seen the same shift. Veterinarians are on the Green List, and rightly so, but there's been no equivalent addition of the roles working alongside them. Veterinary nurses, who carry out anaesthesia monitoring, patient care, diagnostics support, and client education every day, remain outside the list entirely, despite the clear parallel to exactly the kind of allied roles the health sector has just chosen to include.

Why It Matters

This isn't a hypothetical gap. A 2024 workforce survey of over 600 veterinarians, vet nurses, technicians, and practice managers, commissioned jointly by the NZVA, NZVNA, and Boehringer Ingelheim, found that:

·       44% of practice decision-makers struggle to hire skilled staff. Retention looks even more stretched at the nursing level specifically.

·       Only 26% of vet nurses surveyed plan to stay in the sector through to retirement, compared with 40% of veterinarians.

·       Despite typically training for 2-3 years, vet nurses often earn barely above minimum wage, with full-time salaries averaging around $54,000.

NZVNA President Laura Harvey has herself spoken publicly about this gap, noting that allied veterinary professionals are taking on expanded roles internationally, but face real constraints doing so here, and that clearer recognition could help ease the ongoing shortage directly.

The Groundwork Is Already There

One common reason a role sits outside the Green List is the absence of a formal, regulated qualification standard, but that barrier doesn't really apply here. Veterinary nurses have been through exactly that process already: registration is now overseen by the Allied Veterinary Professional Regulatory Council (AVPRC), following reforms to veterinary nursing qualifications years ago. The formal structure the Green List typically looks for already exists for this profession.

Although we must understand one distinction. AVPRC's registration is voluntary and industry-led, not a statutory legal requirement, unlike veterinarians, who are regulated under the Veterinarians Act 2005. AVPRC itself has stated its long-term goal is to eventually merge with the Veterinary Council of New Zealand once allied veterinary regulation becomes statutory. So, the groundwork here is genuine, but it isn't yet identical to the government-mandated frameworks the Green List has typically favoured, a gap worth acknowledging directly rather than glossing over.

A Question Worth Asking

Is the exclusion of veterinary nursing from the Green List a considered decision, or simply a category the recent health sector review didn't get to yet? And if the logic behind adding Enrolled Nurses and Dental Therapists is “these support roles are essential to the profession functioning,” doesn't the same logic apply just as clearly to veterinary nursing?

I'd genuinely like to know what others think, is this a gap worth raising with Immigration New Zealand, or is there a reason for the distinction I'm not seeing? Roles like veterinary nursing are just one example; I suspect there are other allied roles sitting in a similar spot. Keen to hear if others have noticed the same pattern elsewhere.

What This Means in Practice

For veterinary clinics, this plays out as a real, ongoing staffing problem. Skilled migrant vet nurses are typically kept on repeated Accredited Employer Work Visas rather than a clear residence pathway, meaning clinics invest in training and retaining staff who face renewed uncertainty every visa cycle, rather than the stability a Green List role would offer. For the vet nurses themselves, it means real personal cost: ongoing visa fees, the administrative burden of reapplying, and no fixed point at which the uncertainty ends. Some will understandably choose to move to a country offering a clearer path, taking a genuinely scarce skill set with them, the opposite of what a workforce shortage needs.

In the meantime, the practical options are limited. Staying on the AEWV cycle remains the default. It's also worth noting that vet nurses aren't necessarily restricted to that cycle if they can meet the Skilled Migrant Category's wage threshold, currently based on a median wage of $35.00/hour, though the applicable rate varies by skill classification and can be considerably higher. It's also worth noting that this threshold has moved consistently upward in recent years, from $29.66/hour in 2022 to $35.00/hour by 2026, and while the exact size of future increases isn't set in advance, the trend has made this an increasingly difficult bar to clear over time, not an easier one. Given the $54,000 average salary cited earlier, this route remains out of reach for many vet nurses in practice, which, if anything, strengthens the case for Green List inclusion rather than treating SMC as a ready alternative. Beyond that, the remaining option is raising the gap directly with Immigration New Zealand during future Green List reviews.

If this resonates, NZVNA's own advocacy channels may be the most effective place to raise it, including at the next opportunity for public input into Green List settings.

 Victor Alexander & Co. provides research and documentation support to businesses and individuals navigating exactly this kind of regulatory and policy detail. This piece is general commentary and discussion, not immigration advice, for guidance specific to your situation, consult a Licensed Immigration Adviser.

Sources

-       Immigration New Zealand, Green List occupation listings (immigration.govt.nz)

-       Immigration New Zealand, news release on health sector Green List additions

-       “Taking Animal Health Forward” workforce report, NZVA/NZVNA/Boehringer Ingelheim (2024), as reported by NZ Herald, RNZ, and Stuff

-       New Zealand Veterinary Nursing Association (nzvna.org.nz)

-       Allied Veterinary Professional Regulatory Council (avprc.org.nz)