Throughout the country, there's a dire shortage of tradespeople — but there's a new move to make better use of the tradies who already exist.
It's not just a skills shortage, says Kiwi-designed, industry-specific web platform Trade Jobs NZ – which aims to bridge the gap between employers and employees, making it easier for tradespeople to find the right role, and businesses to attract them to apply.
Colleen Getley, founder and director of Trade Jobs NZ, says increased building activity and government-backed infrastructure projects, combined with border restrictions reducing the flow of skilled workers into the country, has meant the industry has been facing a skills shortage for some time.
There are, she says, 178,000 tradies in New Zealand but an estimated 50,000 more will be needed by 2022. But that's not the full picture.
"The Government has allocated a lot of funding to training and apprenticeship schemes to try to get more people into the trades and increase their skills, but the area of real shortage is in experienced staff," Getley says.
"There are a lot of apprentices coming through but the real issue for employers is that these workers are not at the level they need now."
However, she says there is a clear disconnect between companies looking for staff and those already working in the trades who might be looking for a new position.
Word-of-mouth is one of the biggest sources, with nearly 60 per cent of tradespeople surveyed by Trade Jobs NZ saying they relied on it for job information. Just over 30 per cent said they'd got a job this way, with 29.8 per cent saying it was through family and friends.
That means traditional methods of job advertising, including online job sites and recruitment methods, are much less effective for tradespeople and for the industry, Getley says.
"Quite simply, tradespeople are not sitting in front of a computer — most online job boards are designed for office workers. A second issue is that people working in this industry might not necessarily have a CV they can just send off. It often means many tradespeople stay put in jobs and don't move around."
The Trade Jobs NZ mobile-enabled website, designed by a team of young Kiwi developers, aims to make it easier for tradespeople to apply for jobs online by setting up a password-protected personal profile. Information about their skills and experience needs to be entered only once, and relevant trade certification, licences and qualifications can also be uploaded, replacing the traditional CV.
"It's designed to make it simple for these workers to not only hear about available roles but then actually apply for them," she says. "Once an employer posts a job, they can just click 'apply' and all their information will go through to them."
The site is industry-specific, designed for those working in the construction and building, electrical and air-conditioning, engineering and surveying, painting and decorating, and plumbing and gas-fitting trades, as well as the automotive and mechanical, fabrication and metalwork, joinery and cabinetry, landscaping and gardening, and roading and transport industries, plus marine and shipping, farming and agriculture.
The site went live in mid-August and more features will be added in coming months. They will include the self-service employer portal, which will enable businesses to build their own employer pages, register and post job vacancies directly, track applicants and form their own unique database of tradie candidates. A mobile app is also in development.
Trade Jobs NZ is also partnering with media organisations to offer subscribing employers advertising across a range of platforms, as well as promotion though social media and their own digital channels.
"Traditional word of mouth can only travel so far, so we can extend that by using media," she says. "We've looked at how tradespeople get their information and how can we get that word out to them. We are using all the dynamic tools we can."
Getley says more than just being a job site, Trade Jobs NZ aims to be a "one-stop portal" for the trades industry, and is working with industry boards and training organisations to become a central place for relevant information.
"We designed the platform to bring everyone together, whether they're an employer looking to recruit, or someone with trades experience, a contractor or a student, an industry body or supplier. We are aiming to have a strong site through which everyone is working collectively to drive the trades industry into the future.
"We see Trade Jobs NZ as being a facilitator of promoting the trades as a career. We want to get rid of that saying, 'I'm just a tradie'."
To find out more on Trade Jobs NZ click here.