Top of the south has lowest unemployment in more than a decade

Tuesday, 5 December 2017

Wine Marlborough general manager Marcus Pickens says the wine sector needs more workers across the board.

Marlborough is going through near record low unemployment, but that means there is nobody to fill the jobs needed in the wine industry.

The unemployment rate for Tasman/Nelson/Marlborough/West Coast was 2.2 per cent in the September 2017 quarter.

The only time the region recorded a lower unemployment rate was September 2004, when it was 1.9 per cent.

Wine Marlborough general manager Marcus Pickens said more workers were needed across the board and it was not just low-skilled workers needed.

*Top of the south unemployment lowest in New Zealand**

'There are a lot of other vacancies, right through the sector, that's just the wine sector, there's an acute shortage of machinery operators, people who can lead people in teams in vineyards, people who can do accurate counts of yield estimations, so it requires a lot of understanding of numeracy and literacy to do those things plus to lead a team you need other skills as well.

'And then there's all the support services and right through the wine business there are so many roles that people need to fulfil, from sales and marketing to finance, HR and the list is endless,' he said.

The wine sector had already exceeded the forecasted number of workers needed.

At its first Labour Summit in July last year, Wine Marlborough estimated that total worker numbers would increase from 8325 to 10,304 in 2019-2020. That was made up by a required increase of 34 per cent in summer RSE workers and a 36 per cent rise in winter RSE workers.

But the demand for the summer workers for the 2017-2018 season was already 55 per cent higher than it was in the 2016-17 season.

However, region was on target for the forecast 36 per cent growth in winter RSE workers.

The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment confirmed the number of jobs in Marlborough was forecast to grow in the near future.

'While we don't forecast regional unemployment rates, we do forecast regional employment growth and over the next three years, we expect Marlborough to have the highest employment growth in percentage terms, with employment increasing by 3600 or 3.5 per cent,' a ministry spokesperson said.

Pickens also believed the wine sector needed to look pay rates.

'I think we have to be transparent in that as well and look at all these rates, I don't think we have to shy away from that.

'The challenge for us is how do we pass on those increased costs through the price of our wine to the domestic consumers and the international consumers. You know, you can't just keep eroding margin to pay more to everyone who deserves it. Everybody deserves to be well-paid,' he said.

Industry and economic leaders in the region needed to come together and make a plan to combat the shortages of workers, Pickens said.

'So the leaders of our own regional economy can come together and really put all those pieces together to give us a snapshot of now and between five to 10 years.

'After that we actually have to formulate some plans, how are we going to resolve it? What are we going to do, about the challenges of getting people to live here?'

It was also easy to confuse this as a top of the south issue and the region needed to change that perception and needed national attention, Pickens said.

'If this happened in Auckland, the Government would be in there, rolling their sleeves up, boots and all to do something about it. For some reason Marlborough is a small community and hasn't had the national focus, we sort of get swallowed up in this Nelson, top of the south [problem].'

The Marlborough community needed to talk about the shortages more in order to get the country's attention, Pickens said.

'It does take a community to highlight this issue beyond our community. We're talking to our own community, we need to be talking to New Zealand and our leaders in Government that there are acute shortages is Marlborough.'