14 June 2011
Northland's booming forestry industry says that despite the recession it is still hard to find workers to haul logs out of the hills to meet huge demand from China. Northland is New Zealand's second-biggest forestry region with 200,000 hectares of plantations, behind only the central North Island. The region's wood production has already jumped from 1.8 million tonnes a year in 2008 to 3 million tonnes today, driven mainly by China.Forest harvesting contractors, United States-owned Hancock Forest Management, Work and Income and the Forest Industry Training Organisation Fitec have formed a partnership to train 50 young unemployed people so far to fill gaps in the forestry workforce.
Hancock operations manager Rowan Struthers told the NZ Herald about 700 people worked in forest management and contracting in the region and that would grow to about 850 over the next 10 to 15 years.
Pat Paikea, 19, has worked for milling contractor Tom Skipps near Tutukaka for the past two months since doing a training course. He says it's tough work climbing up and down the hills to tie up newly felled trees to be lifted to a mobile ridge-top sawmill.
A friend who started at the same time dropped out quickly. "It might have been too tough for him."
A workmate picks Mr Paikea up from his Kamo home at 6am every day, rain or shine. But as a permanent job it's better than his previous seasonal packhouse work, and much better than the dole which was all he got after the seasonal work ended.
Mr Struthers said it was still very difficult to find skilled workers with the right attitude, even in the recession.
By Simon Collins, NZ Herald. To read the full story, click here.