Dairy sector wants New Zealanders to consider farm work as labour shortage looms

Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King

The dairy industry wants New Zealanders to fall back in love with life on the farm.

With Covid-19 meaning the migrant workforce is not available, it is predicted the sector will need to fill 1000 jobs in time for Moving Day on 1 June - the first day of the new dairy season.

The Fortuna Group is a corporate farming operation in Southland which milks about 12,000 cows across 19 farms.

At any one time 50 per cent of its 100-strong workforce are migrants, predominantly from the Philippines.

Chief executive Matthew Richards said he was down 15 migrant staff at the moment and that would soon present problems.

Migrants make up about 18 per cent of the dairy workforce, Chris Lewis said. Photo / 123RF

"If we are not fully staffed it does create some real concerns around how are we going to do the job. About how we are going to meet expectations around the animal welfare environment and looking after the staff we do have. Making sure that they get their regular days off and are not having to do too many hours."

Richards said he was hoping Kiwis would take a second look at farming.

"We do see some opportunities potentially with the unemployment rate lifting. It creates more of a pool of potential applicants but we've just got to sell ourselves better and definitely we'll attract some. But we're still going to need the migrant workforce in there as well because they've got a lot of experience."

Federated Farmers national dairy group chairperson Chris Lewis said migrants make up about 18 per cent of the dairy workforce and filled up to 4000 jobs.

He reckoned despite the government rolling over expired visas for migrants already in the country until September, there would still be shortage of about 1000 workers.

"We can't bring in any new migrants for June 1 and there were quite a few coming in for the change-over being Moving Day or Gypsy Day. So we're just trying to work through just how big the shortfall is and putting some plans in place to recruit some of the New Zealanders who have found themselves redundant because of Covid-19."