ANZ scratching to fill 300 vacancies
The shortage of workers in the fruit picking and packing industry is well known but it’s not the only sector struggling to get staff with the border restrictions.
ANZ, the country’s largest bank, would normally have around 200 vacancies at any one time but that has blown out to 300 as the bank struggles to find IT workers and those with experience in risk and compliance.
Antonia Watson, ANZ New Zealand chief executive, said in most cases the roles were new and the additional need was partly due to the large-scale compliance projects it has on the go as well as the need to fill more specialised roles as its business model evolved.
“In general, within the technology workforce across New Zealand the increase in demand, and changing nature of the roles we require, isn’t necessarily aligned with the supply in the market which is why we would normally look to other talent pools and solutions to fill these roles, Covid has obviously had an impact on our ability to do this.”
The bank employs 6691 full-time equivalent workers in New Zealand.
Watson said that didn’t mean it wanted the borders to open up quickly again. “No. We need to do this in a safe measured way or we will lose all the gains that we have made.
“We have got a couple of people offshore that we have hired that are stuck and we would love to see them here. We also appreciate that it has to be done in a safe way that maintains consumer and business confidence.”
In the meantime Watson said it was coping as best it could.
“We can use offshore technology providers via Zoom and that kind of thing.
“It is not ideal but there are a lot of other positions we could be in right now that would be a lot worse.”
ANZ New Zealand did 42,000 new home loans in the six months to March 31, up from 38,000 in the six months to March 31, 2020.