The Immigration Minister is confident changes to the Accredited Employer Worker Visa will get the balance of skill right.

Changes include an English language requirement for some roles, and a minimum skills threshold.

Erica Stanford says they're focused on attracting and retaining high-skilled migrants where there are shortages, and prioritising New Zealanders in jobs where there aren't shortages.

She says in 2017, about half of migrants were high-skilled, but now that's switched.

"We really had a big switch to low-skilled migrants. And that's not going to improve our productivity, our economy, our GDP- we need to have that switch back."

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