Bay job growth 'leading the charge'

Dennis Paxie at the Onekawa storage and shipping warehouse Triple P Logistics, which is expanding and taking on more staff. Photo / Paul Taylor

He started with nothing but a green field - now Dennis Paxie is moving into new premises and advertising two new roles for his ever-expanding logistics company.

Mr Paxie has owned local franchise Fastway Couriers for 10 years and business has continued to boom after starting up a side-kick company, Triple P Logistics, two years ago.

"We're expanding, we've just moved to a new building to allow for an extension."

The new premises is on location with Fastway Couriers so client's products can be held and dispatched from the same two destinations not only in New Zealand, but worldwide.

"We started from nothing two years ago, and now have more than 2500 pellets."

Mr Paxie's business expansion reflects the latest ANZ data released on Friday, which reported an 18 per cent growth in job advertisements in the Hawke's Bay region compared with this time last year.

According to the report, Hawke's Bay continues to "lead the charge", topping other New Zealand cities, even Auckland, which had an increase of 9.2 per cent, the second highest in the country, measured by a three-month average a year ago. Last month, Hawke's Bay was hailed to be "going gangbusters" with a 22.6 per cent increase versus the same period the year before.

Business Hawke's Bay chief executive officer Susan White said job advertisement growth in the region was "strong", making it the right time for many businesses to invest in people.

"Anecdotally, I hear about demand for supervisors and operations managers, which is unsurprising given the profile of the region and the investment in the pipfruit sector in particular."

In her opinion, she said the growth reflected the strength of the export sector, as well as "the growth plans of businesses and their optimism about future prospects".

But she said there could also be other reasons for the growth, which might be a need to attract people with specialist expertise and experience, or more job openings due to people retiring.

"This is only one stat and to really understand what is happening we need to complement it with other statistics and business commentary.

"My observation is that new job growth follows an earlier commitment that businesses made in developing new markets and products, and in capital investment needed at this end to support business expansion."

Mrs White said many of the businesses experiencing growth would have used the support that was offered and the programmes available through the agencies at the Hawke's Bay Business Hub.

Also making a significant impact on exporters, and in turn their supply chain, was the the lower interest rates, kinder exchange rates and improved returns.

Mr Paxie said he owed his business success to adopting a "solution-based" plan which he believed made them a stand-out in the region.

The services they offered were affordable because cost was significantly cut because of less travel and their quick turnover of products.

He compared this to other Fastway franchises, for example in Auckland, where travel was further which cost more time as well as money.

"In bigger places like Auckland it can take about three hours for products to be transported before they are dispatched. Here it can be just minutes. It's sort of like maximising efficiency and space."

He said it was the solution-based approach that had given rise to the expansion, which made them "move fast to keep up".

The region itself had also played a role in business operations, too. "Hawke's Bay is actually good for logistics," Mr Paxie said, which ultimately made Triple P Logistics and Fastway Couriers work together so efficiently.