Industries facing skills shortages in coming months include shearers, agriculture machinery contractors and the horticulture industry, which will soon need fruit pickers.
Parker was questioned on the issue by Southland Chamber of Commerce president Neil McAra during a trade breakfast in Invercargill on Tuesday, hosted by Export Southland.
McAra said it was a major concern of business that not enough was being done to bring skilled overseas people into the country during Covid, in a safe manner, to ensure the affected sectors weren’t under resourced.
Parker responded: ‘’I am a hardass there. Compete for labour. That’s my first and strongest message.’’
[…] Unemployment was higher in New Zealand than it had been in years and those people could be employed and trained to do the work, he suggested.
He also suggested affected industries could ask universities to change their semesters to coincide with seasonal peaks.
‘’There’s lots of things that can be done but it’s going to be a tough business for people relying on imported labour for the next year, until we get a vaccine [for Covid].’’
McAra later acknowledged New Zealand should be training people to take the vacant roles on, but it required more than a couple of weeks to become skilled operators in some of the affected industries.
Also, the locations most people were unemployed in weren’t necessarily where the available work was at, he said.
Parker’s response did not deal with the short term challenges for industries looking for workers, he said.
stuff.co.nz/national/122766494/david-parker-takes-hardass-approach-to-labour-shortage-during-covid