Demand for staff in kiwifruit sector

Lesley Mochan says late last year she was getting three or four calls a week from kiwifruit growers wanting to employ people.  Demand is high for people who show potential and want good job, she says.

The polytech offers training for people either in the horticultural sector or wanting to join.

“We get a lot of people coming into our fulltime programme who are coming out of school and don’t know what they want to do, but they know they want to work with their hands,” Mochan tells Rural News. 

“By doing our course, they can see all the sectors of horticulture – nursery production, fruit production or growing flowers. So they can get a taste of each of those areas and decide which sector they want to get into.” 

Mochan says many people already in the industry are taking part-time courses to upskill and apply for more senior roles in the industry.

“In our classes, especially the part time ones, we have lots of discussions because people do things in different ways. We get them to talk about the different ways they work and discuss the merits of doing it and when they go back to their workplace they discuss this further. A lot of good networking goes on as well.”

Mochan says the sector still suffers from a misconception that working in agriculture or horticulture is for dummies; changing this is a challenge. 

Staging events for young people to see the many options is important, as is taking students on site visits to talk to industry people about career options.