WINZ Bay of Plenty regional commissioner Mike Bryant said about 2251 people moved off benefits in the Bay of Plenty at the end of May 2015 to take seasonal work opportunities - about 700 more than last season.
Traditionally the majority of its clients did seasonal work in the packhouses but it also wanted to target jobs on orchards, as that type of employment was likely to last longer, he said.
"Harvesting and pruning and those types of jobs have more lengthy periods of work. You can actually get up to 46 weeks, which is almost fulltime, where the packhouses are three months or less."
However, that was often a challenge because the work was done through contractors, he said.
"That makes it a bit more difficult in terms of heading up employment relationships, so we have been doing a few things like industry partnerships."
It had entered into about 12 partnerships where WINZ worked with the employer, supplied support, funding and pre-employment or on the job training, he said.
"As the person gets more skilled they are taken on as full-time employees."
Another initiative it launched this season was the New Zealand RSE scheme, where 50 people from Tokoroa, Taupo and Murupara were accommodated in the Bay for seasonal employment.
"It has worked well but it still had a few issues but we hope there will be more employers keen to take it on next season."
The biggest task ahead was making sure it got the right match on people it recommended for the kiwifruit industry, he said.
"It is not always easy because it is quite a big industry and there are lots of individual employers that have all different needs. Some of the people that get seasonal work end up getting other jobs ... it is a great catalyst for them but it does create some problems.
"So it's working out a way to continue to educate people that haven't been involved in the industry before."
NZKGI chief executive Mike Chapman said the MSD programmes were important and needed to be expanded.
"The industry needs more skilled workers as our volumes grow."
It had undertaken key initiative to address the supply of labour at all levels as fruit volumes increased, he said.
Extensive work had been done in 2014 to promote horticulture as a career, retain industry talent and grow the seasonal labour resource.
A seasonal work video was created to demonstrated the variety of seasonal work available to individuals who had no knowledge of the kiwifruit industry and supplied to Work and Income sites in growing regions.
While it had facilitated industry partnerships, where nine employers had engaged in nine partnerships with Work and Income and had trained 65 people which resulted in about 50 being employed in permanent on-orchard roles.
President Neil Treblico said there were a lot of opportunities in the industry and some great careers.
