The Southern Institute of Technology and Telford are collaborating with agriculture and forestry contractors for the Queenstown and Te Anau seminars.
The two towns have been hit hard by tourism’s demise, prompting the Agricultural Redeployment Expos in Queenstown on June 10 and Te Anau on June 11.
The expos are a collaboration between SIT, Telford, Rural Contractors NZ, the Southern Rural Workforce Action Group, and Competenz.
SIT chief executive Penny Simmonds said with skilled driver shortages looming for agricultural contractors and significant job losses in hospitality,
tourism and retail, SIT saw an opportunity to offer retraining for newly redundant workers by offering a six-week driver training course.
Contractors will have machinery on display at the expos so those attending can meet and discuss some of the work involved, see the machines used, have a go on tractor and forestry simulators and register interest for training.
Simmons says SIT’s newly developed training programme will have intakes in June, July and August.
Training will be split into three sections with two weeks at Telford to get an understanding of an agricultural contractor’s job, two weeks in Invercargill for driver training and the final two weeks in work placement.
SIT has applied for funding to make the training available free of tuition, accommodation and travel costs.
