Landlubbers wanted on Cup front

What jobs will the America's Cup bring to Auckland? ALICE SHOPLAND reports.

The Louis Vuitton challenge - the races which lead to the America's Cup face-off - starts on the Hauraki Gulf on October 1, and the well-heeled big-wigs of the yachting world and their supporters will be in town.

The last America's Cup poured $640 million into the New Zealand economy, $473 million of it going into the Auckland region.

The money was spent by America's Cup syndicates, superyacht owners and crews, and international visitors media, business and government.

There has been considerable investment in Auckland's once-neglected waterfront to support the challenge, the America's Cup and the well-heeled, and a lot of talk about the economic benefits it will bring - including jobs. Guy Richards says the America's Cup is "huge" for the events industry in general, and for his architecture/interior/production design company, NewImproved, in particular.

Staff are working on the set for next month's opening ceremony, and creating Industry New Zealand's innovation pavilion, which will be open to the public from late November.

It will highlight innovative New Zealand individuals and companies past, present and future.

"It's unique and a wonderful opportunity," Richards says, "and it requires something like the America's Cup to make it happen.

"We'll have the focus on the Viaduct area, a lot of visitors and a lot of international media attention."

Richards is the design director for the pavilion and Bruce Craig, also of NewImproved, is the architect.

But it's a big project, and dozens more people are involved.

Engineers, gib stoppers, steel workers, specialists in flexible membrane structures and landscapers are just some of those working on the concept and construction.

Mini-documentaries are being created by film crews, editors and audio-video technicians - and to ensure a lively variety of styles, various claymation, animation and design/production schools have been asked to produce different segments.

And once the pavilion is open to the public, there will be jobs for security staff, technicians and hosts.

Restaurateurs spoken to in the Viaduct area say the area isn't very busy yet but they know the rush will start the minute the Louis Vuitton starts, and build to an enduring pitch by the end of October.

Metin Yildiz of Mecca Cafe says he's "desperately looking for good staff" for his Viaduct location.

"This is always a seasonal business, always busier in summer, and with the America's Cup it's even busier.

"But because New Zealanders don't consider hospitality as a career option, good experienced staff are always hard to find.

"I still remember after the last America's Cup a government minister being quoted as saying that the majority of the jobs created by the campaign were in the service industry - and he said they weren't real jobs!

"That's so frustrating for someone like me, when we have an average of 30 or more full-time staff at our Viaduct cafe and more at our other locations. Of course they're real jobs."

Peter Anderson, acting regional commissioner for Work and Income in the Auckland central region, says vacancies lodged with WINZ specific to the America's Cup action include boat-building labourers, security guards and retail staff.

For unskilled people looking for Cup-related work, the three most obvious areas to look, Anderson says, are security, retail and the wider hospitality industry, including support areas such as equipment hire for events.

He describes the number of Cup-generated vacancies so far as "small" - which might seem disappointing, given all the hype - but he says that's consistent with the WINZ experience last time around.

"We found that employers tended to recruit from within their industry and backfill with new staff [including those from WINZ] during the peak periods."

During the last campaign, for example, many experienced hospitality staff migrated from the likes of Ponsonby and Parnell to the excitement of the Viaduct.

WINZ offices in north and central Auckland have developed a working relationship with the Hospitality Association, Anderson says, through which local job seekers have been trained for future job opportunities, from kitchen hands to receptionists.

Anderson also says that high-profile though the America's Cup is, it's small beer compared with some of the other Auckland projects currently underway or waiting in the wings: the 12,000-seat Superdome proposed for Quay Park, Britomart and the Auckland Hospital redevelopment.

nzherald.co.nz/americascup