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Boom times in forestry following a downturn two years ago have resulted in a serious shortage of trained labour in the upper North Island.
Foresters say there are hundreds of jobs for trained pruners and warn that if young trees are not pruned, their value could drop sharply.
Forest owners and managers want Government training and funding agencies to urgently put in place more coordinated programmes for recruits.
The chief executive of the Forest Owners Association, Rob McLagan, said physically demanding pruning and planting work had got a bad image following layoffs two years ago.
"The people may be there but they have not got the training."
The shortage of workers was being felt on the East Coast, in the central North Island and in Northland.
The association would meet next week to discuss the labour shortage and the Government had already been told about the need for more training schemes, said Mr McLagan.
Pruners were paid by the number of trees they pruned, making an average of about $100 a day, and they took about three months to train.
About 11,000 workers were involved in pruning, planting or harvesting throughout the country.
Peter Clark, the chief executive of forestry management consultants P. F. Olsen, said the labour shortage was a serious problem.
During the two years of the downturn, when Asian markets slumped, hundreds of pruning and harvesting workers and managers had left the industry.
His company was thinking about using labourers from Fiji if New Zealand workers were not available.
"We have considered that - if we cannot get some solutions in place."
John Blakey, chief executive of the Forest Industries Training Institute in Rotorua, said the big surge in forestry exports at the end of last year had underlined the dramatic increase in demand for training.
"More employers, from forest owners to manufacturers, are realising that competing successfully in tough overseas markets also means having a more highly skilled workforce," he said.
Sheldon Drummond, a manager at New Zealand's fifth-biggest forestry company, Juken Nissho, said the industry would soon be desperate for more staff and they would need to be trained.
"Gone are the days when we used to get bus-loads of people who were on the dole coming out to try and make it in forestry."
Mr Drummond said there were already shortages, especially in silviculture and harvesting, and as greater numbers of trees reached maturity demand was growing fast.
"We are experiencing difficulties already, and my knowledge is that it's only the tip of the iceberg of what we face over the next decade."
Mr Drummond said sixth and seventh-form students and university students needed to realise there was a future in forestry.
- STAFF REPORTER, NZPA
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