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Simon Watson says the biggest challenge as a country and as an industry is a shortage of labour.
Simon Watson, vice chair of Tomatoes NZ, says the biggest challenge as a country and as an industry is a shortage of labour.
"And it is a genuine shortage of labour because we can advertise heavily through the internet and through print media and we get no replies. That is a sign the country is very, very short of labour."
He says worker shortages are not just in horticulture, but right across the whole economy.
"There is just a fundamental shortage of labour and it is absolutely stifling business. No one can dare expand and indeed some businesses are looking to scale back production because they can't guarantee they will be able to pick the product let alone process it.
"This winter we had some weeks we were around 20% down on what we need to operate the business."
Watson says Wellington have been very slow to be able to react to the need for more labour. "The ball is in their court - they can fix it if they want to but they have got to want to," he says.
"We have a system that is broken, it is expensive, clumsy and difficult.
"We are not alone in the developed world in being short of labour and other countries like Canada and Australia have streamlined their pathways for immigration to bring workers in."
Watson says a worker sitting in Malaysia or Taiwan or wherever and who wants a job, will go through the less difficult path to secure it.
"You will go through the easy path and you will go to place like Canada because they have thrown open the welcome mat and they are paying good money and the pathways are simple, straight forward and inexpensive."
He adds that in terms of growth plans they are very nervous about doing anything now "because they can't guarantee they would have people to staff it".
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