Trade academy to chip away at labour drought

The forest industry needs skilled labour, and lots of it, says Ian Boyd. Photo / Hawkes Bay Today

As many as 1000 extra forestry workers will be needed every year for the next 20 years, regardless of whether the current wood boom continues, says a 2008 Berl report commissioned by an industry educational body.

Ian Boyd, chief executive of the Forest Industry Training & Education Council (Fitec), is blunt about the sector's future: "The industry desperately requires skilled labour and lots of it."

Quite where all the extra bodies are going to come from is unclear. They don't grow on trees, after all.

John Stulen, the Forest Industry Contractors Association chief executive, says pay rates are around $50,000 "and $80,000 is not unknown in the industry".

Not bad, but despite the 15 per cent rise in log prices, pay rates for the people cutting the trees have remained flat, says Stulen.

"For the last two years, it's been boom time but pay hasn't gone up," he says, noting that forest owners believe contractors can make up the difference through increased volume.

No doubt contractors did take home much more thanks to the 31 per cent increase in total log exports in the year to June but the industry has high staff turnover - 3600-4600 people a year, according to Berl, adding to the labour shortage.

This is due to a range of issues, including the industry's new hard-line stance on drugs and alcohol.

Forest Owners Association chief David Rhodes says Australia is also part of the problem. "Anyone who could drive big machinery, no matter what job they were doing, could go over there and get 50 per cent more."

Fitec's Boyd believes education is the answer to the skilled labour shortage. New Zealand's woeful productivity figures could also be helped if some of the 30 per cent of school leavers who do not achieve NCEA level two (equivalent to sixth form University Entrance) went through his new trade academy.

The New Zealand Primary Industries Trade Academy is a joint venture between Fitec and the agriculture and horticulture training organisations, and will open next year with funding for 120 students.

"We need more than 120," Boyd says, pointing to the estimated 25,000 New Zealanders aged under 19 not in employment, education or training. "We could cater to 2000-3000."

He is initially aiming for 200 a year but is frustrated by the Government's "university-centric" education policy.

Not everyone is cut out for university, Boyd contends, an opinion supported by the 40 per cent dropout rate among varsity students. He argues those human resources would be better put to work in vocational education such as the academy offers.

Given the critical and dominant role of the primary sector, Boyd finds the "apparent lack of government emphasis" galling.

There is an imbalance of resources and support in the tertiary education sector between university and vocational options, he says, as 70 per cent of school leavers depend on non-university training options.

The primary sector provides about 60 per cent of export receipts and accounts for about a fifth of GDP and "that alone deserves more emphasis", Boyd says.

Spread over three years and involving participating secondary schools and companies, the course seeks to provide participants with NCEA education plus a national certificate in forestry, agriculture or horticulture.

All academy students must achieve NCEA level one (school certificate), while finishing basic ITO training modules.

Year two and three offer different strands as students choose to specialise and it includes university options.

Boyd now wants more funding and a rule-change to allow school leavers to enrol and to bring polytechnic institutes into the mix.