Labour & Skills

Skill Seekers

Marlborough’s skills shortage bites

SOPHIE PREECE Marlborough industries to work together to tackle labour and skills shortage. Photo Richard Briggs

EIGHTY-FIVE percent of Marlborough’s employers have permanent job vacancies, and 80% of them say they are difficult, very difficult or impossible to fill. Those are some of the startling numbers in from a cross sector recruitment survey sent out by Wine Marlborough earlier this year, says advocacy manager Vance Kerslake. “Anecdotally, most people knew we had a shortage of labour and that it was difficult to recruit roles. But I don’t think anyone really understood how big the problem was. Or that it applies across the board, from technical roles to labour.”

The survey was sent to employers in a range of Marlborough industries, including forestry, aquaculture and tourism, and drew responses from 55 employers, with a total of 3,757 employees, across a dozen industries.

Vance says one of the biggest surprises for him was the number of employers who said they simply could not fill roles, including 27% who said technical positions remained unfilled. “If your company needs one of those that’s probably quite a key role,” says Vance. Three quarters (76%) said one of their two biggest challenges was not getting applications from people with the right skills, while 40% had found people with the right skills, without the right visa.

The problem is only going to get worse, with employment set to grow by 2% across New Zealand by 2020, but by 3.4% in Marlborough (From MBIE short term employment forecast 2017-2020). Vance says the challenge is a huge one for the wine industry and others, but there is an appetite for a cross sector approach to better attract and retain staff. “Everyone from industry and training organisations, to council and government is keen to do something about it.”

To see the full survey results go to the news page at www.winemarlborough.co.nz/

Smarter Skill Seeking

The Marlborough District Council has launched its ninth regional Smart+Connected programme to address labour and skills shortages in the region. The initiative will draw on knowledge, insights and experience from people involved in labour and skills, including schools, training organisations, employers, and government agencies.

Council strategic planning and economic development manager Neil Henry says it is about better understanding “who is doing what, what is working and what could be improved”, when it comes to training, retaining and attracting skills and labour in the region. “The process should also identify opportunities for collaboration between the many parties involved in labour and skills in Marlborough.”

Smart+Connected (S+C) has been used by council for the past five years to bring together nine industry and community groups to plan and deliver on co-designed strategies. Wine Marlborough advocacy manager Vance Kerslake says using it to tackle labour and skills shortages is an exciting development for the wine industry, and for other employers who struggle to fill vacancies.

At the first meeting of the project’s establishment group, which included representatives from several education and training organisations, as well as employers and Immigration New Zealand representatives, Vance released results from the recent recruitment survey (see main story). Eighty-five percent of Marlborough’s employers have permanent job vacancies, and 80% of them say they are difficult, very difficult or impossible to fill, he told the group.

“That’s why I think the Smart + Connected approach is such a great opportunity,” he says. “We are all doing something on our own, or think that we needed to do something and not quite sure what it should be. Coming together for collective impact means the whole can be more than the sum of its parts.” Business Lab’s Colin Bass, who facilitates the S+C programme, says the initiative will look to build on existing projects. “It is about supercharging efforts and being innovative,” he says.

Easter Trading

Chocolate, cruise ships, air shows and cellar doors

WINE MARLBOROUGH is urging the wine industry to consider their Easter trading situation sooner rather than later. In March 2017, the Marlborough District Council adopted the government’s Easter Sunday Shop Trading Policy, which allows retailers to open on Easter Sundays. However, the sale of alcohol is governed by the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012, which includes rules around the sale and supply of alcohol on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and overpowers the new policy.

Mike Porter, who is secretary of the council’s district licensing committee, says Section 47 of the act allows on-licence facilities to sell alcohol to people who are there to stay or eat on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. That’s good news for vineyard restaurants, who can serve wine as long as people are eating. It’s also good news for guests on Radiance of the Seas, a cruise ship that carries more than 2,000 people, which is scheduled to arrive in Picton at 9am on Sunday April 21 and depart at 9pm. When it comes to off-licence premises, such as cellar doors without restaurants, Section 48 allows the sale of wine from premises on Easter Sunday if the wine is made on the premises or from produce harvested from the land it’s on. “This means that most cellar doors are able to be open on Easter Sunday as of right,” says Mike.

If that clause doesn’t match the circumstances, a special licence can be applied for, as long as the special event is not Easter related, such as an Easter egg hunt, he says. “But the airshow is a pretty good event to use, and a number of cellar doors and off-licence premises have used it in the past,” he says.

Good Friday is another story, and it is likely that the only onlicence special licences approved for Good Friday and Easter Sunday will be for the airshow itself, including wineries operating at that event. It’s a complicated (Easter) business, says Mike. “Always check the conditions of your licence and if in doubt contact council for advice”.

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Climate Change

Mitigation methods compared by vineyard model

SOPHIE PREECE Cyril Tissot in French vines

Marlborough may be able to tap into a cutting-edge prediction model that assesses adaptation strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change on vineyards. French geographer and researcher Dr Cyril Tissot has created a model that simulates, in the short and long term, the variance in phenology and ripening timeframes in vineyards due to climate change, taking into account agronomic practices. “Climate change is one of the major challenges facing the viticulture sector,” he told industry members at a seminar in Marlborough last month.

The research approach has two principle objectives, the first of which is to “simulate grapevine phenology and grape ripening under spatial and temporal environmental conditions and constraints”. The second objective is to “simulate viticultural practices and adaptation strategies under various constraints (environmental, economical, socio-technical)”. The model runs on a microscale (plot by plot) and a meso scale (for homogenous wine growing regions), and offers an optimum climate change scenario, a pessimistic scenario, and middle ground between the two.

There’s a wide range of adaptation strategies, from the short term (including wine making techniques, soil, canopy and harvest management, and pest and disease control), medium term (including root stock and site selection, pruning techniques and planting systems) and long term (grape varieties and irrigation) being considered, he told the group. “We do not have one solution - we have many solutions of adaptation.”

The model has been developed in France, but the next stage of research will see a prototype taken to the United Kingdom, Romania, Germany and Spain, Cyril said. “The objective is to compare adaptation strategies on a more global stage.”

Cyril is also interested in collaborating with New Zealand grape growers to assess whether wine areas here could be integrated into the model. The seminar was run by the New Zealand Winegrowers Research Centre (NZWRC), which is developing a comprehensive programme around climate change. NZWRC development manager Tracy Benge says that programme is intended to increase the industry’s understanding of climate change, and to develop adaptation and mitigation tools. NIWA is modelling climate change scenarios and predictions for New Zealand’s wine regions, and the research centre will analyse the impact of those predictions on various aspects of viticulture, winemaking and production. A dedicated NZWRC webpage has been set up to provide information on climate change studies and seminars, as well as the regional information from NIWA.

The research centre also plans to leverage other climate change programmes, such as the French adaptation model, Tracy says. “It’s a case if not replicating but providing a similar model in New Zealand.”

Companies that would like to be involved, and provide data for the model, can contact Tracy at tracy@ nzwine.com.

Wishing all our Marlborough & Nelson clients a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Engineering communities for over 80 years.

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