With forecasts from the  Hanga-Aro-Rau Workforce Development Council showing the manufacturing, engineering, and logistics (MEL) sectors will need to fill over 157,000 jobs over the next 5 years, existing recruitment strategies need to be widened to include those with transferable skills from other industries.

As NZ Manufacturer business advisor and director of Auckland public relations agency Impact PR Mark Devlin has found, recent government cost-cutting measures could provide an opportunity for manufacturers to access a resource critical for the sector’s future growth.

With thousands of government and private sector workers made redundant during the recession and from public sector cuts in recent months, the opportunity exists for the manufacturing sector to create a talent bank of skilled workers.

This could help futureproof the sector by accommodating thousands of new employees in manufacturing firms nationwide.

A large proportion of the 6,000+ Government workers who are losing their jobs as a result of public sector cuts have highly transferable skills that are in short supply and could be absorbed by a wide range of manufacturing firms that contribute directly to the country’s economic growth.

What we know of government workers is that they are well-trained in many of the key competencies in desperate need within the manufacturing sector. This includes people from government departments with an existing relationship with industry such as WorkSafe, NZTE, ACC, and MPI. 

With Māori and Pacific Peoples expected to make up a growing proportion of the workforce the sector needs to be looking to bring in greater diversity and more cultural awareness – and the Government workforce has an abundance of expertise in this area.

As a nation, we have invested heavily in developing our government workforce and it is critical we move to retain these skills, many of which are unique to our ethnic and demographic makeup in New Zealand.

Most of these workers will be basing their understanding of the job market on what they can see advertised, as their filtered searches for new roles may be limited to government or administrative positions.

They may have underestimated how transferable their skills are to other sectors and may also be feeling despondent and potentially desperate given media reports of high numbers of applicants for the available roles. 

In addition, thousands more private sector workers are finding themselves displaced from their jobs due to restructuring or business insolvency.

This spike in labour supply could form part of a move to fill 158,000 roles (an average of 31,500 per year to 2029) that the Hanga-Aro-Rau Workforce Development Council’s research has shown will be required in the manufacturing, engineering and logistics sectors over the next five years – a hurdle that is set to impact industry growth if not addressed.

With this volume of supply entering the job market at effectively the same time, and with little forward notice, some form of support may be needed to proactively reduce the cost of finding skilled workers for businesses, address misconceptions about the sector, improve diversity awareness and help reduce the number of Kiwis moving to Australia – due to the perceived lack of opportunity within New Zealand.

There are messages that need to be delivered to this potential workforce, many of whom would never have considered the manufacturing sector as part of their career.

One of these is that new technology is reshaping the manufacturing industry and helping it shed its legacy image of dirty workshops and machinery. 

They also need to know sector needs employers in every business function including finance, HR, marketing, sales, health and safety and IT and it needs to see more underrepresented groups move into the industry – including women, Māori and Pacific peoples and disabled workers.

With the manufacturing industry moving rapidly towards automation, which is bringing in robotics, AI and other technologies, the skills required to manage this transformation are diverse and in short supply.

We are seeing more remote working now as well – where equipment can be managed virtually which is helping to pave the way for increased diversity within the sector.

This means if a worker wants to stay in Wellington or is physically challenged with poor mobility there may be opportunities available.

It is also important to let the workforce know most employers will offer some sort of on-the-job training – helping transition workers who are new to the sector within a matter of weeks. 

For many, this will mean they can finish their current role one day and walk into another in manufacturing the next day – with no loss of salary or external retraining required.

Manufacturers now have a unique opportunity to match thousands of highly qualified employees entering the job market within another sector of the economy that they may otherwise have never considered.

We know that many firms have been looking for more employees since the pandemic. Over time it has become cost-prohibitive to advertise roles for an extended period and these businesses have learned to adapt – often by turning away domestic and export orders and downsizing their production.

There is a clear opportunity to connect a large highly skilled workforce with businesses that can once again scale up production and take on new contracts.

It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to migrate large numbers of workers, who are well-trained with respect to cultural sensitivity and other core skills needed to help increase the number of Māori & Pacific peoples to a sector with critical skills shortages.

The message the industry needs to deliver is there is a hidden layer of work opportunity here that they are inherently well suited to and there may be no need to disrupt their whānau by looking for work offshore.