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The New Zealand rag trade, once rapidly retrenching under the overbearing shadow of cheap third world imports, is now so desperately short of skilled staff that a group of apparel companies is setting up its own sewing school in Levin.
The local apparel and textiles industry has reinvented
itself to focus on niche and high end products, and is now crying out for skilled people. The historical picture of it as a dying industry has put off many from entering or returning to the trade.
DesignTex, a group of 21 textile and apparel companies mainly in the Horowhenua and Kapiti Coast areas, recently won a $500,000 contract to supply uniforms to the New Zealand Olympic team and has come up with its own answer to the skills shortage.
In 2006 the newly established DesignTex was allocated $2 million over three years from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to develop the textile industry in the lower North Island. Some of that funding is being used to set up a small school in Levin to train machinists, and to develop a three-month internship scheme for school leavers at local firms.
Levin-based Canvasland, which makes everything from bouncy castles to trampolines and rugby goal post protectors, is a DesignTex member. Chief executive Brendan Duffy said the group and its initiatives were "the breath of fresh air that our industry needed".
DesignTex chief executive Andy Wynne said the lack of skilled staff was now inhibiting member firms' growth - "we could employ probably 10 machinists this morning, put them behind a machine today" - and the only solution was to create them.
John Baker, chief executive of another Levin DesignTex member Levana Textiles, said he exported 50 per cent of his production and was looking to expand. He would hire three people right now if he could.
"Without a doubt there is a market there, you've just got to figure out what it is ... And then you've got to go and put new things into the market that people didn't know about or think about, so you keep that edge."
Andrew Mills, managing director of Auckland-based textile importer and redistributor Charles Parsons which has joined DesignTex because it supports the initiative, said part of the skills problem was that many tertiary courses were aimed more at fashion design, not at the back room activities of the industry.
"We're having a large influx of people with possibly the eye and the colour capability but not a lot of industry background knowledge," he said.
Wynne said in conjunction with Work and Income DesignTex would open the sewing school in April. It would run five-week courses for seven trainees at a time, teaching them laying up, cutting and machining of fabric. In addition seven DesignTex members would hold an open day next month, in the hopes of attracting 14 school leavers into a three-month training scheme. Trainees would spend time in one or more of the companies with the aim of being employed at the end of the period.
"It's really getting into the market, changing the perception of young people and their parents, to show them that it's not a twilight industry," Wynne said.
The seasonal nature of the rag trade in New Zealand had not helped the perception of job security, said Mapihi Opai, chief executive of industry body Fashion Industry New Zealand. Designers had peak periods of two to three months twice a year when they produced the new season's range, and not much in between.
"When New Zealand lost a lot of its generic-type product ... year-round product, staples like T-shirts, it lost that continuity and workflow."
She said that had led to an ongoing skills shortage, and training efforts such as DesignTex's were welcome.
Wynne said the group was working with the Apparel and Textiles Industry Training Organisation on having its training schemes accredited.
ATITO chief executive John Dorgan said the majority of training in the sector was done on the job, rather than through training providers, and in addition to the DesignTex scheme ATITO was also starting a sewing school for 10 people in Palmerston North this week.
He said the apparel industry that existed had survived due to "some very clever design, some very clever skill", but the companies were small and to take someone out just to do training could reduce a company's throughput dramatically. Hence starting up the sewing schools.
