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Tension is building among Bay of Plenty tradies with claims that job “poaching” by out-of-towners is rife amid a national construction downturn.
A builder who travels for work says he has no choice after jobs in his town dried up, but another says the trend is a “kickin the guts” for local tradies.
Rotorua Lakes Council went from handling fewer than 400 consents a year in 2020 for dwellings to a record of about 800 last year. It said the main risk was whether the construction sector had sufficient capacity, with about 400 builds in the pipeline through to mid-2025 and another 100 in different stages of planning.
Rotorua developer Ray Cook said the surge of tradies from out of town looking for a slice of the action was more than noticeable.
“We’ve experienced a high volume of tradies from Tauranga, Mount Maunganui and Pāpāmoa looking for work in Rotorua … jumping in the ute and trying to grab some of the work,” he said.
Rotorua property developer Ray Cook says high volumes of tradies are travelling from Tauranga, Mount Maunganui and Pāpāmoa looking for work. Photo / File
Rotorua developer Tony Bradley said he was aware of people travelling to the thermal city for construction work.
While Kāinga Ora projects kept local trade busy, there was only so much work to go around, he said.
“If they [Kāinga Ora] weren’t doing what they’re doing we would very much be like Tauranga with low building consents,” he said.
A report presented to Tauranga City Council in March said new dwelling consents in January were “significantly below” forecast, with just 29 units consented and 20 receiving code of compliance certificates, compared with an expected average of 93 per month. Consents in the 12 months prior were 58 per cent of forecast.
No other option - travelling builder
NZME spoke to two Bay of Plenty builders who asked not to be named because of fears it would impact their work prospects.
A Pāpāmoa-based builder said he regularly went to Rotorua looking for work before finding a job outside the region.
He said he often worked on housing projects but jobs had dried up locally. He believed he was the first to lose the work because he was a sub-contractor.
“I’ve tried everything but there’s nothing here for me so of course I’d go to Rotorua.”
He said he was one of “many” tradies looking outside Tauranga for work.
Local tradies ‘hurting’
In Whakatāne, a long-time builder said the sector was “rife” with out-of-towners coming in and “poaching” work.
The builder said it was a “kick in the guts” to lose work to non-locals.
“There are a lot of guys I know who are hurting because of these guys coming down,” he said.
“I watch them come into town, in their big trucks. It’s pretty average to see all this work going to these guys.”
“What little [work] we do have is getting eaten up by out-of-town people, not by local people who live here and pay their taxes and rates. It’s all going out of town.”
Local tradies were now doing smaller jobs, such as renovations or fences, they wouldn’t have bothered with six months ago to try to stay afloat, he said.
‘Boomtime’ to ‘slowdown’
Tauranga-based Todd Grey of Todd Grey Builders says they stay local but there were more builders out looking for work. Photo / File
Todd Grey from Tauranga-based Todd Grey Builders said his business had a “pretty good reputation” which helped prevent any drastic changes to his core group of clients and sub-tradies. He stuck to local jobs, mostly in the Mount Maunganui area and did not travel out of town.
However, more people were approaching him for work since the “slowdown first happened”, he said.
“I had guys coming to me looking for complete jobs but recently I’ve had more individual guys coming to me wanting to come on wages, so there’s definitely a lot more builders floating around,” Grey said.
He said he believed some builders were okay because they diversified into smaller jobs early on.
The situation was a big change from the “boomtime” five years ago when there were long wait times for projects and builders struggled to get staff, he said.
“Definitely, one of those factors is probably the interest rates. They’ve climbed and I think it’s caught a lot of people out.”
Grey said the poaching situation was tough but “you have to do what you have to do”.
In February, NZME reported in the past two years, the average one-year mortgage interest rate had gone from 3.7 per cent to 7.3 per cent, which on a loan of $500,000, equated to an extra $370 a week.
Kāinga Ora regional director for the Bay of Plenty, Darren Toy, said the housing agency had an extensive build programme across the region, including 449 homes in progress in Rotorua and 380 in other towns - 167 in Tauranga - as of last month.
Kāinga Ora regional director for the Bay of Plenty, Darren Toy in 2022. Photo / Andrew Warner
He said its contracted build partners on projects to put new homes on its existing properties were responsible for hiring subcontractors.
“We have a regional focus for the selection of our build partners, and endeavour to partner with local companies where possible.”
It also worked with private developers, which managed the projects.
Kiri Gillespie is an assistant news director and a senior journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, specialising in local politics and city issues. She was a finalist for the Voyager Media Awards Regional Journalist of the Year in 2021.
