YOUR INDUSTRY REGIONAL ROUND UP: AUCKLAND
LABOUR, LABOUR, LABOUR – PREPARING FOR 2022 Words by Geoff Lewis
New Zealand‘s horticultural sector survived last year‘s Covid-19 lockdowns, but this season has added stress through labour shortages, changing consumer habits and the costs of exporting.
PickMee, with a 120ha orchard in the Waikato and 350ha in Hawke’s Bay, usually employs 112 RSE workers with 70 needed by late November and another 50 in February. The company‘s production season begins with peaches, nectarines and plums in December and moves into apples in February.
The Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme enables the horticulture and viticulture industries to recruit workers from the Pacific Islands for seasonal work, when there are not enough New Zealand workers.
Brent Wilcox, director with Pukekohe and Waikato onion and potato growers A.S. Wilcox and Sons Ltd, says the earlier part of the season had been favourable but the labour market had tightened up in the last six months as had the difficulties and costs of shipping export onions.
However, the government retained the 14,400-worker cap for 2020–21, due to the impact of Covid-19 on employment, economic conditions and international travel. This has been compounded by a gradual loss of foreign backpackers on working holidays.
“We got through last season quite well but I‘m anxious looking forward to the coming crop. We need skilled [machinery] operators and we employ full-time crews when we reach the season‘s peak. Many skilled operators come from offshore as there are very few available locally.”
Waikato-based Strawberry Fields owner, Darien McFadden, says labour was a big issue in early November and he is still a long way from full production and already short-staffed.
‘Pinch points’ will arrive from November through to Christmas and then with the start of the onion season which requires workers from January to March.
“A lot of growers are going to walk away from blocks,” says Darien. “I usually have 30 to 40 staff but this year I‘ve got five with another 13 or so regulars coming back. The big loss is 20 to 30 people on working holiday visas who usually just rock up. We have record low unemployment. WINZ (Work and Income New Zealand) refers people, but we‘re lucky to get any that turn-up.”
Bond says the labour shortage issue urgently needs solutions to create certainty, and RSE workers from the Pacific Islands are critical for the near future
PickMee Fresh director, John Altham, says the labour market is tight, the biggest shortage being in foreign holiday visa workers. The leading apple and stonefruit producer is hoping to get the same number of RSE workers they had in 2019 – as promised by the government.
Wilcox says the company is lucky to have good regional teams and many of its administrative staff have been working from home due to Covid disruptions.
“We usually use about 30 to 40 backpackers, but they have been slowly going home,” says John. “Unemployment is very low. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) did a survey asking how many people were interested in working in horticulture and 80% said they weren‘t interested. A lot still think it‘s low wages and long hours, but there is good money to be made.”
New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc. (NZKGI) represents 2,813 growers on 13,334 producing hectares across New Zealand.
32 NZGROWER : DECEMBER 2021
The kiwifruit industry has successfully reached the end of its 2020 harvest and packing season with a record crop now headed for overseas markets – if not already there.
NZKGI chief executive, Colin Bond, says this season will be short due to border closures which have resulted in the industry facing a critical situation with seasonal labour.
