Central Otago is again looking at the prospect of a summer horticultural season with a shortage of workers, while business across the rest of the district is fairing well after winter. 

Central Otago District Council economic development manager Nick Lanham says a shortage of workers for the upcoming horticultural season is the major concern, as the district emerges from winter.

“A key concern is keeping COVID-19 out of the community and our success in achieving this will go a long way to ensuring our economy can function as normal. 

“Labour is going to be a real challenge this summer - even more than it was last. 

“Our seasonal labour demand peaks over summer and not only is our horticulture sector facing challenges but so are other sectors of our economy such as tourism, hospitality and agriculture. 

“I have also been hearing the difficulties employers are facing filling permanent roles. 

“Over the last 12 months unemployment nationally has been decreasing, there has been very little migration, and the number of migrants in New Zealand on temporary work visas has also been falling. 

“So this year employers are looking for staff in a much smaller pool of available workers, and they are finding it hard to recruit for both seasonal and permanent roles.  

“Supply chains are still going to be an issue both for getting goods in and out of Central Otago and New Zealand.

“Looking forward, we will be watching closely and hoping to get another upswing in economic activity compared to normal like we did coming out of the last lockdown.”

Nick says on the whole our economy performed well over winter, while the data is yet to emerge from the recent and ongoing community outbreak of Covid-19, which thrust the nation in lockdown.

“Coming out of the first lockdown we knew that there would be an initial increase in spending but we were unsure of how long that would last,” Nick says. 

“It lasted really well with some businesses even able to make up for the loss of activity over the first lockdown. 

“Our Job Seeker numbers have continued to track downwards which is also a good indicator.”

Nick says there has not been any data released on the latest Covid-19 outbreak and lockdown but it is optimistic. 

“Because the latest lockdown is so recent the data is yet to come out,” he says. “However the change to alert levels clearly reduced our level of economic activity, which has an impact on both businesses and households. 

“The support from Central government through the wage subsidy and resurgence payments has helped to reduce some of this impact but it is unlikely to completely offset it. 

“Once again, we are very fortunate to have a diversified economy. Our businesses performed really well in the time between the first and second lockdown, and a good proportion of the workforce were able to keep working in level 4 conditions. 

“Now in alert level 2 (with Auckland in alert level 3 or 4) we are seeing the tourism and hospitality businesses most affected, by reduction in travel and restrictions on social distancing and events. 

“The other main challenge is supply chain, with businesses not getting the goods that they need from Auckland which is a key distribution gateway. 

“While supply chain issues were evident before this lockdown they have now been further exacerbated by the Auckland lockdown.”

Nick says the increased costs of goods may see a squeeze point for business across the country. 

“As elsewhere in the country, we are seeing the cost of goods increasing both for households and businesses – this is a concern as incomes are unlikely to be rising at the same rate and this will put pressure on the level of disposable household income.”