KEY POINTS:
Fruitgrowers are staring at heavy losses from spoiled fruit as the industry faces yet another harvest without sufficient workers.
Despite schemes introduced by the Government to fill gaps with foreign workers, the horticultural and viticultural industries still fear they will be well short of the thousands needed to pick fruit over the next few months.
Low unemployment in New Zealand has greatly diminished the pool of resident workers, while the high exchange rate means fewer seasonal travellers to New Zealand to take on the work.
Pipfruit New Zealand said the labour shortages would be worst for smaller operators harvesting over the coming months who did not have access to the Government schemes.
Service manager Gary Jones said: "It will be as bad as it's ever been for people who haven't secured their supply of workers through some of the policies that have been available. It's probably worse for the majority."
Fruit-growing areas including Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa, Marlborough and Central Otago are all affected.
An official labour shortage will be declared in Nelson this month, while one has already been declared in Hawkes Bay.
Horticulture New Zealand's manager of national seasonal labour, Jerf van Beek, said the signs for worker numbers at this stage were not good.
"Certainly it's the worst I have seen it since I have been involved in working with the Government on this from about 2004."
Fruitgrowers waited all year to harvest their crop and it was "soul-destroying" when the workers were simply not there to pick it.
There was often only a three- or four-day window to pick the fruit for export quality, and delays meant lesser-quality fruit for products such as juice and much smaller returns.
The Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme had enabled fruitgrowers to take on workers from the Pacific Islands, but mostly only the largest operators had signed up because it was "hellishly complicated", Mr van Beek said.
"You have to have a whole human resources system in place and you have to get approved accommodation signed off by labour inspectors. Only a small number have applied."
The Department of Labour said 106 horticultural and viticultural employers had applied for RSE status and 64 had been approved.
Harvest trails were established to encourage working visitors to move around the fruit-growing areas, but Mr van Beek said the Government had stymied this by limiting new work permits to allow overseas pickers to work for only one employer.
The other danger of the shortage, he said, was that agents offering illegal labour tended to thrive.
