Labour hire chief acts to help end skills shortage

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Auckland labour hire chief Vance Simpson is calling on employers to do more to help themselves out of chronic skills shortages.

The former photographer and "fill-in" labourer, who started his North Shore-based hire business as a 20-year-old in 1985, now has more than 100 workers on his books.

But he says his firm, New Zealand Labour Hire, could have placed at least that number again in full-time work this year - if there were enough people available.

He is constantly phoned by clients crying out not just for skilled workers such as carpenters and drivers, but even for labourers and cleaners.

Mr Simpson says too many employers sit back waiting for others to take the first steps in easing skills shortages largely brought about l by the demise of apprenticeship schemes in the 1990s.

He has started paying for the more conscientious of his labourers to attend courses to become truck drivers - producing swift pay rises - and is negotiating for land in Manukau to set up a training school to extend to others skills such as carpentry.

"I can't afford to pay labourers more than $10 an hour, particularly as a lot of other labour hire firms start at $8.50, but if they pass a four-day truck driving course their pay goes up at least $3 almost straight away."

Meanwhile, he is trying to establish an apprenticeship scheme under the umbrella of the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation, using qualified carpenters on his books to teach theory as well as practical skills to labourers.

There will be no pay cuts during training, and the trainees will earn twice as much as labourers after completing the required unit standards.

It is not just building sites trying to cope with a construction boom that are hard-pressed for labour.

"We are short of digger operators and even fork-hoist drivers, which affects warehouses and factories," Mr Simpson says.

The Northern Manufacturers and Employers' Association chief executive, Alisdair Thompson, says the skills shortage is the biggest problem facing businesses today.

Building and Construction ITO regional manager Bernard Te Paa has welcomed Mr Simpson's initiative and other schemes which, he says, have boosted the number of his organisation's trainees by 20 per cent to about 4000 this year.

He said some of the increase was linked to the leaky buildings crisis, with unqualified people rushing to enrol in courses before the Government requires builders to be licensed.

But there was also an encouraging rise in young trainees, despite what he believed was a continuing over-emphasis by schools on grooming students for white-collar occupations.

Mr Te Paa said Auckland employers were still doing far to little to fix skills shortages compared with those in smaller centres.

Mr Simpson wants to build his training school, as well as a new operating branch, in Manukau because of the large labour pool.

Although his initial focus will be on training enough workers for his own clients' needs, he hopes it will grow to cater for others and make a real dent in skills shortages.