Heading for the sun: Jobs dwindle as efficiency grows

Kakatahi School teacher Katrina Hampton with her small class. A dwindling roll mirrors the population decline of the region. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Pupils have no chance of falling through the cracks of the education system at Kakatahi School, halfway up the Parapara road from Wanganui to Raetihi.

When 10-year-old Olivia Anstis started at the school five years ago, she had to share the sole teacher's attention with 24 other children.

Now, on a good day, teacher Katrina Hampton has just 10 children in her charge. On the day the Herald visited just before Christmas, she had seven.

"It's really neat because you have so few people and they don't push you round," said Olivia.

"It's better because we've got less children," said classmate Alex Hawkins-Ives, also 10, who came to Kakatahi last year from the much bigger Mangamahu School, which has 32 pupils.

But Casper Rose Ratiema, 13, was feeling lonely.

"There's no one here my age," she said. "There's not enough kids."

Population decline in rural districts such as Kakatahi is the counterpoint to the influx of New Zealanders and immigrants into Auckland, and to a lesser extent into the "sunbelt" retirement zones of Nelson-Marlborough and the Bay of Plenty and other urban regions.

The mainly rural regions - Manawatu-Wanganui, Gisborne, Taranaki, Southland and the West Coast - lost 25,551 people between them in the 15 years up to the last census in 2001.

In the following 15 years to 2016, Statistics NZ expects them to lose a further 12,800 people.

They are being driven out by a dwindling job market. In the 15 years to 2001, the Wanganui district lost 22 per cent of its jobs, Gisborne lost 20 per cent, the South Waikato 19 per cent and Taranaki 16 per cent.

Farming and farm processing have both become dramatically more efficient. Beef and sheepmeat production, for example, increased 13 per cent from 1986 to 2005 but meat industry employment dropped from 39,327 to 30,130.

The booming dairy industry boosted milk solids production 85 per cent in the same period, but jobs in dairy processing only inched ahead from 8652 to 9650.

"What is driving this business cycle across the macro-economy has actually been our rural communities. They generate the higher prices out of fewer people," says National Bank chief economist John McDermott.

"Auckland has been growing at about 1 per cent per person per year. That falls short of some of the other regions such as Taranaki, Waikato and Southland which have been growing at more than 2 per cent per person per year.

"So if you are lucky enough to live in those regions and keep your job, you are doing better."

Olivia's father, Steve Anstis, who chairs the Wanganui Rural Community Board and the local Federated Farmers, points to time-saving technological changes such as quadbikes and a new conveyor belt system that allows a vet to vaccinate up to 1000 sheep in an hour - an operation that previously took a farmer and a labourer a day or two.

"Once upon a time it was the norm to have one fulltime labour unit to 2000 stock units. These days it's closer to 5000," he said. A sheep counts as one stock unit and a cow as six.

That's good for those who still have jobs, but not so good for those who don't.

Judy Karaitiana, who chairs the Whanganui People's Centre, cites a long list of closures in processing industries in the town: the railway workshops, a smallgoods plant, fish factory, tannery and a shoe factory. The meatworks halved its staff.

The other side of the ledger is smaller: some new chainstores and the Masterfoods pet food firm, which employs 240 in Wanganui and plans a factory 10km south that will add 50 staff.

The town looks prosperous, with once-vacant shops towards the bottom of Victoria Ave now bustling stores and cafes. Wanganui shared in the growth of the film industry with River Queen, and is attracting retirees.

"But as a trade unionist I worry that a lot of the jobs we have now are only very part-time jobs," Mrs Karaitiana said. "For some unknown reason, people are accepting that."