Friday, March 29, 2024

Opotiki labour predictions no cause for concern

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Officials charged with boosting rural employment in the Opotiki district doubt predictions the district will suffer a labour crisis in the coming decade.

Predictive work by Waikato University demographer Professor Natalie Jackson has raised the prospect of Opotiki being one of several districts nationally to suffer a significant decline in its working age labour force aged 20-65.

Her estimates are that even with moderate migration gains, the district’s labour force shrinks by 7% and up to 11% should migration remain low.

But Opotiki Mayor Lyn Riesterer said this is not the first time she has seen such predictions and doubts they will be fulfilled.

“Over the past three years we have actually seen our population grow, from 9200, to now be at 10,000. We attribute part of this to covid, with people coming home to whanau, and also seeing jobs with the opportunity to buy a house,” Riesterer said.

The 10,000 population is up 10% on the 2006 census and in 2018, 20% of the population had moved back in only the past two years.

Along the poor end of the Bay of Plenty, Opotiki was hit hard in the 1980s by Rogernomics, with sheep farming subsidies removed, two clothing and one shoe factory closing and many Ministry of Works staff redundancies.

In the meantime, the golden glow of the kiwifruit industry the Western Bay enjoyed was late arriving, with the Opotiki district struggling through three decades of reduced labour opportunities and dwindling services.

In a population where 65% are Māori, the district has recorded unemployment rates typically double the country’s average and a deprivation index making it the third worst in the country after Wairoa and neighbouring Kawerau.

But looking out over the next 10 years, Riesterer sees every reason for the district to not only continue attracting ex-locals back, but to keep them and to grow, thanks to some major initiatives from iwi, the primary sector and government.

The district is now a hub for higher-value kiwifruit cropping further up the coast and is moving to farming the sea alongside its existing land-based assets of pasture, forestry and orchards.

And under the Provincial Growth Fund, Opotiki’s boat literally came in.

After over a decade and five funding attempts, it received $80 million towards its harbour development and a mussel factory operation, which opened in August last year.

“Over the past three years we have actually seen our population grow, from 9200, to now be at 10,000.” 

Lyn Riesterer
Mayor of Opotiki District Council

It represented a significant injection to a small district economy that generates about $450 million of GDP a year.

Operating as Open Ocean Whakatohea Mussels, the factory will ultimately employ 230 people by 2025, representing the last piece of the district’s aquaculture puzzle for more employment.

The factory fits with the massive 5000ha of ocean area off the town’s coast that was a key part of the Whakatōhea Treaty settlement.

It was the first settlement to include ocean area as part of the deal and is the largest open ocean farming zone in the world. The focus on the sea makes sense in a district where 75% of the land is locked in DoC estate, while also claiming 50% of the Bay of Plenty’s total coastline.

It is also the culmination of iwi elders’ vision to farm the sea to provide income for whanau.

Barbara MacLennan, workforce manager for the development agency Toi EDA, said the projects have been undertaken with an eye on ensuring long-term, sustainable jobs are offered locally first.

“We have asked, ‘what does a good job look like?’ There is a strong values base at heart of that, something some sectors have been incredibly slow to get across,” MacLennan said.

 The Opotiki district has suffered generations of embedded welfare dependency and even now in a time of plentiful jobs has 1500 of its 10,000 population on benefits.

Of these over half are unemployment benefits, with intergenerational welfare dependency common.

“It has taken three generations to get into this position and will take time to get out, there are no quick fixes. People need a lot of pastoral care to step into work,” she said.

She said moving people into work involves more than simply promising a living wage.

The district has developed a “pathways to work” approach almost a decade ago, identifying people while still on a benefit, both young and old, and helping deal with drug, family and housing pressure prior to placement in a job.

This can be as simple as helping would-be employees get their car licence, often  the first step to other higher-paying licences, including forklift operating and heavy trucks.

“We have put support in to encourage employers to take someone on without a licence and wrap around to help them get it while working,” she said.

The “pathways to work” philosophy has become a blueprint later embedded in tender documents for the harbour and factory projects.

“It means much more of the supply side to these projects is now sourced locally, like concrete for example, and involves local people and businesses,” she said.

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