Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the government will look at strategies to make seasonal work more continuous as a way of tackling labour shortages like the one that was declared in Bay of Plenty yesterday.
The Ministry of Social Development said yesterday that an additional 1,200 people are needed to pick and pack an extra 20 million trays of kiwifruit in the Bay of Plenty this season.
Ms Ardern said the fruit industry had raised concerns about a potential labour shortage some time ago and the government had extended the numbers of seasonal workers in response.
"We have a special scheme in NZ around seasonal workers where, in particular, we have those that come in from the Pacific Islands for a short period of time to assist with those seasons," she said.
"We extended the number of those that are available to those to make sure that we could try and fill those gaps because again, the last thing we want is fruit rotting on trees or on the ground."
Ms Ardern said it was challenging to attract Kiwis into seasonal work but the government was looking into strategies.
"We do need to make sure that we are bringing through those who will work on an ongoing basis in some of these industries," she said.
"One of the issues we have is that if it’s seasonal work it is slightly insecure in the sense that you have a job for a period and then you don’t.
"We’ve talked in the past about ways of making that a little bit more continuous but when you are working in a region where you might have a dominant industry for one season then trying to find those other employment opportunities outside of that is a bit of an issue."
"These are the kinds of things we want to build up as part of the employment strategies we’re working on as a government to ultimately deal with some of those critical shortages."
Ms Ardern said it was not just the fruit industry which had a labour shortage with construction a significant focus for the government.
SHARE ME