UPFRONT Skills hunting offshore

With skills shortages still putting curb on growth, some New Zealand employers are hunting offshore. More than 60 would-be recruiters last month travelled to London to set up stalls at the Opportunities NZ Expo – including bunch of local bodies and companies such as Fulton Hogan, Vector, Fisher & Paykel, Transit NZ, Connell Wagner Engineers and Venture Southland.
Many are second-time attendees who were successful in attracting skilled immigrants to fill local employment gaps after last year’s Expo.
Out of its slump is the IT industry whose vacancy index increased by 81 percent in the 12 months to September 2004. Between January and September the index rose by an impressive 110 percent compared to 11 percent for the same period last year.
Earlier this year Manpower Employment Survey found that local employers’ intentions to hire had dropped in the last quarter but with 30 percent of 527 respondents thinking positively about taking on new staff, we are well ahead of most other countries.
The equivalent percentage across the ditch is 17 percent while in the US and UK, the figures were 24 percent and 14 percent respectively.