Alliance Group general manager of people and safety
Chris Selbie says the processor is considering
initiatives such as job flexibility and extended
seasonal work to mitigate staff shortages.
The meat industry is scrambling to fill its work roster for the coming season, including finding sufficient numbers of halal butchers without having access to foreign workers.
Meat Industry Association chief executive Sirma Karapeeva says some plants are short 100 employees, which may force reduced value-add processing or an exit from some product lines.
The shortage is across all work areas but is prevalent in the Bay of Plenty, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatū-Whanganui and Canterbury.
Local forestry contractors desperate for staff are also unable to source overseas workers despite a miniscule response to a local recruitment drive.
Karapeeva has labelled the shortage of halal workers “critical”.
About 43% of red meat exports are halal-certified, which requires around 250 halal processing staff, of which about 100 are New Zealand residents or those with open work visas.
The closure of NZ’s borders due to the covid pandemic has curbed access to migrant halal butchers and boners, so Muslim New Zealanders are being encouraged to consider a career in the sector.
The sector is also asking the Government to recognise religious affiliation as a qualification for halal butchers and to create a special visa category for these workers.
Due to annual staff attrition, Silver Fern Farms needs about 1600 new workers ahead of the peak season, which the company states is challenging due to the border closure.
It operates an approved in principle (AIP) scheme to recruit workers from the Pacific Islands, especially for its Hawke’s Bay, Pareora and Balclutha plants, but says it has a plan to recruit and retain employees to mitigate the risk of lost processing or a drop in value.
Alliance Group general manager of people and safety Chris Selbie says the processor is considering initiatives such as job flexibility and extended seasonal work to mitigate staff shortages.
“While it is early in our season, we are concerned about our ability to recruit the number of seasonal workers required across our seven plants due to the ongoing impact of covid-19,” Selbie said.
AgriHQ senior analyst Mel Croad says once the lamb season starts, volumes quickly ramp up to between 500,000 and 600,000 a week by Christmas to supply chilled markets.
Beef + Lamb NZ is forecasting there could be one million extra lambs for processing this year.
Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi says the ministries for Primary Industry and for Business, Innovation and Employment are working with the MIA to consider a class border exception for a small number of migrant slaughterers, which would only occur when MIQ capacity allows.
Faafoi acknowledges border restrictions limit the ability to access offshore labour, but says this is a key tool to protect NZ from the virus.
Forestry contractors are also struggling to recruit locals for silviculture work despite the efforts of the Ministry for Social Development (MSD).
Forest Industry Contractors Prue Younger chief executive says having recruited 250 people last year, efforts this year were less successful.
This was despite an MSD project promoting a “$10,000, 12 week challenge”, reflecting the earning ability for a silviculturist.
Of the 2500 people who registered, Younger says less than 20 took up the work.
“Some of the rationale for not taking up the work was location, drug testing and some signed up not realising what they were signing up for,” Younger said.
“It was just terrible and quite sad because MSD tried to help us and unemployed NZers to get a job, but there is just so much apathy out there.”
She says Immigration NZ has rejected calls to allow workers from the Pacific Island, claiming they were not qualified, despite evidence of NZQA qualifications and experience and that silviculture was not time dependent.
The National Party says current immigration policies are also forcing doctors, teachers, engineers, construction workers and nurses to leave NZ.
Migrants are stuck in limbo by delays in processing visas, which has created a backlog of residency applications and a frozen Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) and residency Expression of Interest (EOI) pool.
Party immigration spokesperson Erica Stanford says it would resource INZ and instruct them to address the backlog, reopen the EOI pool and process visas under urgency so skilled workers do not leave for other countries.
It would also provide a residency pathway for skilled migrants and their families, including dairy farm workers and decouple visas from specific employers to binding migrants to sectors and/or regions.
