Meeting your AEWV accredited employer obligations

What you are required to do as an AEWV accredited employer

To be approved and maintain your accreditation, you must:

• meet the commitments you made during your application to be an accredited employer
• comply with New Zealand employment laws and standards, and with the Immigration Act 2009
• tell us of any changes to your organisation or if an AEWV worker stops working for you.

Commitments you make when you apply

If things change for AEWV accredited employers

You and key people in your business must not have:

• employed a migrant who did not have the right visa or visa conditions to work in that job
• provided false or misleading information to us
• been involved in other businesses with immigration breaches
• been banned from acting as a director
• been subject to a stand-down period for breaching minimum employment standards or committing immigration offences
• been permanently banned from sponsoring work visas for committing serious immigration offences.

We may complete inspections, either desk-based or through site visits, to confirm you are meeting your requirements as an AEWV employer.

Post-accreditation checks

We check a number of accredited employers each year. These checks are to make sure you are continuing to meet the requirements for accredited employers.

We may ask you to provide information as part of our checks. If you do not give us the information we ask for, your accreditation may be revoked.

Guide to post-accreditation checks for AEWV accredited employers

If you are not meeting your employment requirements

We expect accredited employers to take their responsibilities seriously and comply with AEWV requirements.

If we believe you are not meeting the requirements for accredited employers, we will send you a letter outlining our concerns and ask you for your feedback.

We then assess your feedback and decide if any further action is required. The further action required depends on the significance of our findings.

We may revoke your accreditation if you are not meeting your requirements. If the issue is minor, we may give suggestions for improvement. Major issues can result in you:

• having your accreditation suspended or revoked
• being subject to a stand-down period or being placed on a stand-down list
• receiving infringement notices and fees, or
• being prosecuted and permanently banned from supporting visas for other migrant workers.

Accredited employers who are being actively investigated for any breach of accreditation may have their accreditation suspended.

Immigration law for employers

If your employer accreditation is suspended or revoked

If we suspend your employer accreditation, we may not make a decision on your job check application until after the suspension ends.

If we revoke your employer accreditation, any unused job tokens will be cancelled.

If we suspend or revoke your employer accreditation:

• you cannot hire new migrants – we contact any affected migrants who are not in New Zealand as they may not be able to travel here on their AEWV
• any AEWV workers that you currently employ, and who are already in New Zealand, can continue to work for you.

If you are placed on the Employer or Immigration stand-down lists, we try to contact any affected AEWV workers if we have their current contact information.

Employers on stand-down — Employment New Zealand

Immigration stand-down list

How to tell us about a change

The process to tell us if something has changed depends on whether:

• an AEWV worker stops working for you
• the key people in your organisation change
• your business is going through a restructure, liquidation or bankruptcy.

If things change for AEWV accredited employers

If you have concerns about an accredited employer

Anybody with concerns about employers who are not complying with the law can help us take action.

Report an immigration offence

Help for employers

Our employer helpline is open between 08:00 and 18:00, Monday to Friday.

Freephone from New Zealand landlines: 0508 967 569