Bay in bid to attract Aussie workers

Brendon Gardner (left) from MBIE and Priority One's Greg Simmonds are looking to Australia to attract skilled workers to the region. Photo / John Borren

Priority One is going offshore for the first time in several years to seek skilled workers for the Bay of Plenty.

The Tauranga economic development agency is partnering with the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment to attend the MBIE Job Fair in Melbourne on April 18-19, says strategic projects manager Greg Simmonds.

"The work we do with a lot of our businesses shows that certain skills are becoming increasingly hard to find, particularly in sectors such as engineering, ICT and health," said Mr Simmonds.

"We are going to take part in the expo to really promote the region to skilled people as a great place to work and live."

Mr Simmonds said the last time Priority One had been involved in recruiting skilled people offshore had been in the UK, seven or eight years ago.

The Melbourne expo was a lot more targeted and less costly, he said. This time Priority One was working closely with the government. "Our goal is to attract skilled and creative people here for the local businesses that need them," he said. "We do a lot of work in growing skills here through the secondary and tertiary education sector.

"But we need to populate businesses with skilled people through a variety of mechanisms. Some of that is growing our own and some of it is bringing skills we don't have into the region."

Mr Simmonds said the team knew where employers were really struggling for staff, and could talk to interested parties about specific roles, but their real role at the expo would be to sell Tauranga as a growing region that needed skilled people and help people considering moving here.

Brendon Gardner, the ministry's regional relationship manager for skills retention, Bay of Plenty and Waikato, said the expo offered an opportunity to attract both Kiwis looking to return and Australians wanting to migrate to a country with a similar culture that was relatively close to home.

Mr Gardner, who took up his newly created position in October last year, said a major focus was on the retention of skilled migrants.

That meant taking into account not only how the new migrant settled into his or her job, but also advising on work options for other family members, schools and housing to ensure the family settled in.

"A lot of our role is around working with employers and industry to make sure we do a good job of, not just attracting, but also keeping people in the region," he said.