People & Places
New life new career
Job not listed on the New Zealand skills shortage lists? Fancy a change in career once you arrive in NZ?
Then, asks Maike van der Heide, why not do what Andy Meyer did and start your new life in NZ working in a totally new occupation? Some people will do anything to get into New Zealand – even if that means swapping a desk job for mowing lawns. That's exactly what Andy Meyer did to get him and his wife Jane a visa to Aotearoa.
After spending 26 years of his life as a motor insurance engineer, 56-year-old Andy got into the gardening business in order to secure he and Jane a spot Down Under. The pair had been applying, without success, to enter New Zealand on a family quota visa because Jane's dad and sister lived there. "We applied twice under that [visa] but it never got drawn. If we got pulled out of the hat it was meant to be."
It wasn't meant to be, but Andy was not prepared to bow down to fate. He contacted AMI Insurance in Auckland to apply for a similar job to what he did in the UK and his contact showed interest. However, Andy was already 56 – just one year past the cut-off age for a visa through the Skilled Migrant Category. The couple toyed with the idea of getting Andy's son, a chef, to move from his home in Sydney to New Zealand and open a café or bar. But Andy realised that the pressure would really be on his son, who they would be relying on to get the business off the ground. "Without him we'd struggle," admits Andy.
Then, at an emigration show in London, Andy saw a brochure on a New Zealand lawn mowing and gardening company called Greenacres that would change their lives. "I'd got to the stage in my life where I wanted to do something different. The job that I was doing wasn't getting easier – in fact it was getting more demanding." And so Andy decided to take a chance and went looking for a franchise to buy. With help from family and other contacts in New Zealand, he found a Greenacres for sale in Hawke's Bay on the North Island. But before he could buy it he needed a visa – and to get the visa he needed to buy it! "It was a bit of a chicken and egg situation for a while," Andy says.
Finally, in March last year, Andy's application for a small business visa was accepted, and by November the visa, and a new life in NZ, was theirs. Andy arrived in New Zealand on 9th January and started work just three days later. With only £11,000 he set himself up with a van, a lawn mower and equipment. Greenacres set him up with a client base of 86, a contract of ten years and other Greenacres representatives to meet up with occasionally for a beer. After finalising the sale on their house back in the UK, Jane joined Andy on 28th February. The Meyers are not the only expat Brits who have needed a serious career change to achieve the lifestyle they want.
Stories that have done the rounds here in NZ include one particularly keen man who did a kayak guide course specifically to buy a business in New Zealand. Immigration New Zealand states your chances of being invited to apply as a skilled migrant are a lot bigger if you already have a job offer from a New Zealand employer in a field it considers to be skilled employment. Of course, that field is getting larger and larger and Brits are everywhere, filling up New Zealand's gaping skills shortage gaps in the health industry, education, most trades, farming: even bakers and tandem skydive instructors have made the list. Because of the country's ongoing shortage of useful workers, the list stretches long and varied but if you're unlucky enough to have one of the few jobs not mentioned – for instance, journalism – a change of career may be the only way in.
In most cases, qualifications or experience are needed to gain enough points for the Skilled Migrant Category. However, if you manage to secure a job offer during a fact-finding tour of New Zealand, you're away, particularly if it's an industry on the skills shortage list. You could learn to skydive or, more practically, you could do what Andy Meyer did and look outside the box, using common skills like lawn mowing and a lot of guts to get to where you want to be. For the Meyers, the change in career was the right decision, despite a couple of major obstacles.
Tragically, Jane's father was killed in a car crash in Auckland just a couple of months before his daughter joined him in New Zealand. It was a setback, says Andy, but he was only part of the reason they were emigrating so they did not let it stop them. Jane's New Zealand experience has not gone entirely smoothly, and she is still struggling to find a job but Andy says the couple are currently pushing to make their big move work and are not letting it get them down. "She's chipping away at it, applying for everything, so something will come up eventually," he says determindly.
The couple now own a house in Napier, Hawkes Bay near their family. "I was out working when we got the key and when I came home Jane was already talking to the neighbour," he laughs. Andy is loving his new gardening life, a sharp contrast to his office-bound existence back in the UK. "You were in the office seven seconds after getting out of bed," he remembers. There are other benefits, too. Thanks to the outdoor, physical work he has already shed nine kilograms. "I've just got to keep it off for the winter," he laughs.
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