Skilled Kiwis flocking to plug talent gap in Tasmania

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - Tasmania is poaching skilled New Zealanders in a bid to fill the key gaps left in its resurgent economy by an exodus of its own talent to Melbourne and Sydney.

Capitalising on a flight of Kiwis that already has alarmed policymakers in Wellington, headhunters in Australia's smallest state are now processing a raft of applications gained after only two North Island seminars.

Among the applicants are a significant number of highly qualified migrants who have given up a fruitless search for work in New Zealand and who now want to move across the Tasman.

Hobart-based headhunter Michael Buck concedes that some, at least, will dog-leg through Tasmania to the mainland - but in the meantime New Zealand skills will plug critical holes.

They will be part of a flow that in the past 18 months has turned New Zealand's migrant flow into a net loss, pushing up the number of people moving permanently to Australia by 26 per cent in 1999 and by a further 21 per cent in the March quarter this year.

Mr Buck, of employment consultants Searson Buck, said Tasmania, like New Zealand, had suffered from competition from Australia's major cities.

In the past decade a major rationalisation of the island's industry had seen companies move their headquarters to Sydney and Melbourne, accompanied by a flow of professionals and skilled workers.

Now, with increased economic growth, Tasmania faced serious shortages in such areas as IT professionals, accountants, engineers, agricultural supervisors, dental staff, fishermen and diesel mechanics.

"The interest in New Zealand is that the economy, while obviously larger, and the types of industry that exist there, are similar in many ways to Tasmania," Mr Buck said.

"The sort of aquaculture we have in Tasmania, for example, really only otherwise exists in New Zealand.

"It's the same with wild fisheries - if you're looking for people for trawlers, the only place to go to from our perspective is New Zealand."

Other key attractions included the ease of travel between the two countries and the mutual recognition of qualifications, including those of migrants who had completed the recognition process in New Zealand.

A significant number of people at recruitment seminars in Auckland and Wellington had migrated to New Zealand but were having extreme difficulty in finding work, Mr Buck said.

They were in many cases highly qualified - dentists, accountants, horticultural experts, engineers.

Salaries in Tasmania have also become attractive, forced up by competition from Sydney and Melbourne.

While lifestyle can attract a handful of people from the mainland, the flow is overwhelmingly in the opposite direction: one Tasmanian employer had to increase its salary package from a planned $A120,000 ($150,000) ceiling to $A150,000 to lure a senior accountant.

"What's happening in Tasmania is supply and demand."