Telecom looks overseas as skill shortage bites

New Zealand's biggest telephone company will recruit IT staff overseas for the first time as skill shortages here bite.

Telecom's chief information officer Mark Ratcliffe says it will probably not start doing this until next year.

Telecom has recruited a handful of overseas IT employees "opportunistically" but has not formally set out to recruit from other countries.

Like a lot of other companies, Telecom is experiencing more turnover in staff. IT employees are moving from one job to another for better salaries and know they can pick and choose in some areas.

Telecom is looking to expand its IT workforce as well.

Mr Ratcliffe said its preference was to recruit in New Zealand and give opportunities to people who were here.

But, "given the sort of insatiable demand from New Zealand businesses and from ourselves internally for strong technical people, I suspect we are going to have to increasingly recruit from overseas while there is still relatively full employment and there is nothing to indicate that is coming to an end".

Unemployment is at a 23-year low of 3.4 per cent.

Telecom is considering recruiting from Britain and South Africa because New Zealand is attractive to people in both those countries for its lifestyle and safe environment.

Even if New Zealand salaries are similar or lower, the lifestyle in New Zealand is a big selling point.

Mr Ratcliffe said that in Britain in particular, the business community faced similar challenges.

Asian countries could also offer IT workers but a good number of Asian immigrants with IT skills were already in New Zealand. The business experience of Asian workers was also a little different.

"So while they might have the technical skills, they have not necessarily applied them in quite such sophisticated marketplaces."

IBM chief executive Katrina Troughton was part of a lobby to encourage the Government to provide incentives for people returning from overseas.

"That would be something we would be highly supportive of for people with IT skills," Mr Ratcliffe said.

"A lot of New Zealand IT professionals do have quite protracted periods overseas."

Telecom head of human resources for IT, Paul Bethell, said the company was not looking to recruit from Australia because people there already had a good lifestyle and New Zealand's pay rates were significantly lower.

"We just can't afford them," he said.

The company's new graduate programme was designed to develop young talent from within.

A recent campaign had attracted 1300 applicants to its graduate programme. Twenty would be selected. Half of those would be top IT graduates and the other half top graduates showing leadership potential.

Steve Jackson, sales and marketing manager at competitor TelstraClear, said his company was finding it difficult to get people in the sales and marketing division.

Jobs in sales with a high commission element were not attractive because people could pick and choose between other jobs.

"It's a buoyant labour market and it is hard."

- nzpa