Auckland, Christchurch - a tale of two cities at work

When an officer employed by Christchurch ratepayers turns up at the West Coast glaciers looking for work for the city's youth, it's a sure sign that they do things differently down south.

For more than a decade, first under Mayor Vicki Buck and now under her successor, Garry Moore, the Christchurch City Council has led the country in proactive regional development - earning a put-down by former Business Roundtable head Douglas Myers, who described the city as the "People's Republic of Christchurch."

In complete contrast, Mr Myers' home city, Auckland, has disbanded its economic development unit.

"What we have tried to do is to develop a closer relationship with business, but they are not telling us to go and create jobs for us - that's what they do best," says the chairwoman of Auckland's city attractions committee, Victoria Carter.

In Christchurch, the officer who regularly checks out job openings for young people in hotels at the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers is just one of 50 people employed by the council-owned Canterbury Development Corporation (CDC).

Chief executive Chris Pickrill says the corporation aims to foster both the local demand for labour, by helping businesses to grow, and the supply of the skilled labour that businesses need.

Christchurch invented the "Business Grow" programme, which sends a team of support workers out to help small businesses to "maximise their potential."

"Small businesses, despite the 'market forces' view, don't have perfect knowledge about their environment, and they need to have someone to help them know what sort of support is around," Mr Pickrill says.



The support workers can refer businesses to 150 volunteer mentors as well as professional advisers.

In the early 1990s, Vicki Buck gave these programmes a public focus by declaring a goal of creating 2000 new jobs by the year 2000. This "Target 2000" was achieved.

"It made companies feel important," says Mr Pickrill. "It created employment by inviting companies to a mayoral reception, lucky draws for this, that and the other. There was a general feeling that small businesses had a key role to play in that process."

This community spirit has been carried through into "clusters" of businesses such as software, electronics, biotechnology and education.

John Hamilton, who manages CDC's high-tech cluster, brought in a business person to work with 10 small high-tech companies for 14 weeks to develop business plans.

"We are readying them for the world markets," he says.

The cluster is also a social network, bringing 40 or 50 high-tech companies together for a barbecue on Friday nights.

CDC is the local agent for the Government's BIZ training courses and for the new Enterprise Awards and Investment Ready schemes.

The other half of its work is to ensure that Christchurch people have the skills to take up the jobs that its businesses create. Mr Pickrill says this means providing a wide range of training options.

"If we want to provide employment opportunities for everybody who aspires to them, then we can't just rely on high-tech, simply because not everyone is a rocket scientist or wants to be."

CDC's four schools advisers have helped to develop 30 "academies" at various city schools modelled on Aranui High's famous Sports Academy, a school for youngsters who are more into sport than books.

Linwood High now has an air force academy, others specialise in panelbeating and engineering, and there are several with a netball focus.

The corporation runs a "Youthworks" scheme with Work and Income NZ (Winz) to find training and jobs for about 90 young people who get into trouble with the law. They also provide a joint service for job-seekers generally, "Actionworks."

For more academic youngsters, CDC school advisers promote sticking with science.

"You could argue that that's not a role for local government," Mr Pickrill says. "We believe that we as a community have to do something about it, if only for the sake of our own businesses who need those skills."

In Auckland, there are some parallels. Seven local councils have applied for funding to promote four new "cluster groups." They have already created clusters in education (Study Auckland) and fashion.

BIZ courses and other business support programmes have been spun off into the New Venture Trust.

Auckland City has also had talks with the high-tech ginger group NZInc about the possibility of a pilot scheme to get more technology into schools.

But Victoria Carter says a Christchurch-style jobs "publicity machine" would not work in Auckland. "If there is a desire to do a programme like that, I'd rather see Winz come to us with those sorts of ideas.

"Then you'd get a better partnership going than the council initiating it, because there's a huge fear among business that the city council will end up being the biggest employer and ratepayers will start to pay for this sort of stuff.

"A lot of business people think the council should be focusing on roads and rubbish."

Herald Online feature: The jobs challenge

We invite your responses to a series of questions such as: what key policies would make it easier for unemployed people to move into and generate jobs?