Staff with right stuff hard to find

Steel and Tube - the country's largest distributor of steel and steel products, including roofing, pipes, wire and metal fasteners - is finding technical posts harder to fill in a tightening labour market.

The Lower Hutt company employs about 880 people nationwide in manufacturing, distribution, warehousing and sales.

Chief executive Nick Calavrias says the most difficult vacancies to fill are in the sales force.

"It's more on the selling side rather than the manufacturing. But they need technical skills as well, not just straight-out selling skills."

The people looking for work are generally less qualified than one would normally expect, Calavrias says.

Whereas previously the company needed to advertise a vacancy only once, "now to get the right applicants we might have to advertise two or three times".

However, despite the tighter labour market the company is still getting the staff it needs and Calavrias hasn't given much thought to what more could be done to attract potential employees.

"It hasn't really got anywhere near that situation for us yet," he says.

Some roles actually attracted a great deal of interest.

"We just advertised for another health and safety co-ordinator and we got 50 applicants."

Calavrias expects the labour market to soften as the economy slows.