Meat processing plants seeking 70 extra employees
Absenteeism and the inability to fill vacancies is proving to be a major challenge for the meat processing industry, a key industry boss says.
Willie Wiese, general manager for manufacturing at Alliance Group, which employs up to 1500 people in its Smithfield and Pukeuri plants and 5000 throughout New Zealand, said labour shortages were among the biggest tests the industry faced.
‘‘Absenteeism and access to people is a regional issue at both Timaru and Oamaru for us,’’ Wiese said.
The Smithfield plant, which processes venison and lamb, needed 60 more employees; while beef and lamb processor Pukeuri had employed about 180 people so far this year and was still looking to employ another 10, Wiese said.
He said the industry was always searching for new employees, especially during peak season from the end of November.
‘‘Through seasonal peaks labour is at a shortage, not just with Alliance, it is the whole industry.’’
Plans were in place to solve the problem and Alliance had been working closely with the Ministry of Social Development and the New Zealand Meat Workers Union in accessing other labour pools, Wiese said. ‘‘We are looking at very creative ways of acquiring labour locally but we have also put in expressions of interest to bring in immigrant labour. We will get that generally approved and then bring in labour from other countries such as Tonga, Samoa, China and the Pacific Islands.’’ Secretary of the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Meatworkers Union Bill Watt said Smithfield was one of the most seasonal plants in New Zealand and only operated for about seven months of the year. ‘‘To attract people into an industry where they are not going to work a full year and there is no guarantee they will work full weeks while they are actually employed, it becomes an undesirable industry for people to work in.
‘‘The first thing the companies have to address is how to fix their problems. We don’t have an issue with immigration as such because there is a need but they have really got to do something about seasonality of the likes of Smithfield,’’ Watt said.
Wiese said absenteeism was the other major issue with production within the industry, which they were hoping to find solutions to.
‘‘We are launching a new innovative way of dealing with absenteeism, to hopefully lower the levels of absenteeism, working with the meat workers union and all other relevant stakeholders,’’ Wiese said.
‘‘Leave applications are always something one can plan for, it is unannounced absenteeism that you can’t plan for.’’
Wiese said absenteeism was a key problem because it affected worker salaries and also became a safety issue when short-staffed.
‘‘If people are absent, they [workers who are present] try and keep up with the speeds, therefore people put themselves sometimes at risk. It is one of our core issues.’’