
Number of workers on visas steadily increasing
The 189,822 people who were in the country on work visas at the end of December last year is nearly back to pre-Covid levels.
By: Sally Lindsay
28 January 2025
The figure is just slightly below the 196,488 people who were in the country on work visas at the end of 2019. In the intervening years visa numbers dropped because of the pandemic and more recently the large number of overseas workers who transferred to residence visas under the 2021 Resident Visa Scheme, which fast-tracked approvals for more than 211,000 people who were already in the country on work visas. In December the number of seasonal workers usually decline as they head back to their own countries for the summer break, but they are expected to rise again to substantial numbers during the first quarter of this year.