Demand for Wairarapa food workers rises

Job vacancies in Wairarapa's food industry are rising, a Masterton recruitment boss says.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's latest online jobs report shows the number of jobs advertised online jumped 18.4 per cent nationwide in the year to March, and 16.5 per cent for skilled positions.

Online job vacancies grew 1.9 per cent in March amid renewed signs of a strengthening labour market and economic growth.

Owner of HR and recruitment company Boss group Leanne Welsh said food-associated industries in Wairarapa were showing strong growth.

"If you think about the general public when they're going and doing their grocery shop ... a few more luxury items are starting to creep in. Instead of one bottle of wine a week, they might be able to afford two.

"In Wairarapa during the recession, nobody bought bacon ... but now people are buying bacon as a regular feature in the groceries."

That translated into sales, which meant higher profitability for businesses, a larger turnover and more jobs.

Wairarapa businesses were also "piggybacking" on other regions' growth through increased exports to those regions, she said.

According to Statistics New Zealand's most recent household labour force survey, the employment rate in the wider Wellington region was 69 per cent of the working age population for the December quarter, up from 63.9 per cent for the same period a year earlier. The national rate was 64.7 per cent.

Nationwide, the employment rate rose 3 per cent in the year to December.

According to the MBIE jobs report, hospitality and tourism enjoyed a significant 36.7 per cent hike in the past year, and job vacancies in the sales, retail and marketing industries rose 21.7 per cent.

Hospitality NZ chief executive Bruce Robertson said the hospitality industry was finally recovering from the recession.

"Paymark data suggests there's been strong growth in hospitality spend over the last six months."

Increased spending had given employers confidence to hire more staff, he said. "It's been four or five fairly tough years where people haven't been spending as much ... what we're seeing now is some confidence that the increased spend is going to be sustained."

The jobs report showed the medical and healthcare industry experienced the only drop in the last year, down 4.5 per cent, though skilled vacancies in the sector rebounded last month.

MBIE labour market and business performance manager David Paterson said job vacancy figures were consistent with the overall performance of the national economy and labour market. "Despite the monthly fluctuations, we can see a healthy trend in vacancies over the past year, across all regions and most industries," he said.APNZ