Ministry figures provided to Hawke's Bay Today this week show there were 5970 RSE workers in New Zealand on April 14, and of them 2793 were in Hawke's Bay.
Among the bigger employers is Hastings company Crasborn, which had more than 300 at the peak of the apple harvesting, about half having recently returned to their home countries, while some may move to other work in other regions.
Company RSE manager Ross Howard said the growth means other work is emerging for New Zealanders as the industry confidence grows, including supervisory roles and skilled operators such as tractor drivers.
"Without it we would be struggling and it's a good back-up while we're all pushing for more jobs for Kiwis as well," he said.
Taylor Corporation's Steve Anderson said: "The industry wouldn't survive now without it."
The industry had needed large numbers of workers available when the harvesting needed to be done, and Mr Anderson said: "It's assisted us to get stability. It has had a huge impact on us as a business, and it's given our industry some surety to plant again. All the big players have started."
Crasborn expects, on trends, to have about 85 per cent of this year's workers back next year, some of them with RSE histories dating back to when the scheme was introduced in 2007.
There is now a well-established cycle of support for themselves and their communities to the point where there is no shortage of takers for the opportunities.
"It's an eye-opener to see 500 queuing up in Vanuatu," said Mr Howard.
It was also an eye-opener to see the use made of wages which in one week in New Zealand might be more than a month's in the islands.
He conceded the concept of providing work for the overseas labour force is still sometimes a "tense" subject and added: "It was always going to be a bit hard. We'd love to say we could do 100 per cent Kiwi ... but it just doesn't work that way."
Hawke's Bay Fruitgrowers president Leon Stallard said that apart from hail, which caused some major damage in limited areas a week before Christmas, it's been a good season.
"We were worried about Cyclone Lusi, which could have left a lot of fruit on the ground right at the time of harvesting," he said. "But it was a bit of a fizzer."
The season was preceded by a drought and a mild winter, and there were no frosts to worry about.
The scheme was introduced in 2007-08, allowing for temporary entry of overseas workers to work in New Zealand's horticulture and viticulture industries.
In 2011, it was reported that in the first four seasons, there had been 24,614 placements, involving 13,895 individuals, indicating over half were return workers, most of whom were returning to work with previous season's employers.
In the 2013-14 season, the number of RSE positions approved for Hawke's Bay grew from 1508 in November to 3048 in March. An immigration spokesman said an employer might not recruit the number approved each month due to the availability of local labour or a change in growing conditions, as happened this year.