Perks aplenty, but few applicants for job role
A four bedroom home for less than $300k, a five minute commute to work, around $90k a year and top tourism destinations less than an hour away.
That’s potentially what the South Waikato District Council’s next health and safety manager could get from living in the district. But despite the ‘‘lifestyle perks’’, attracting decent applicants is proving difficult for the council.
The council’s last manager, who came from overseas, lasted only 12 weeks and the officer before that 18 months. Speaking during the council’s Finance, Audit, and Risk Committee meeting last Thursday, councillor Gray Baldwin was dumbfounded as to why the role was not attracting more applicants. As of Thursday only eight people had applied and applications close this Friday.
‘‘Fonterra Lichfield is the largest milk drier in the Southern Hemisphere and has health and safety managers for Africa and Kinleith is enormous too so we do have these roles [in the district]. The council needs to work out how to get some of them in here,’’ he said.
The most obvious drawcard is the district’s affordable housing. Trade Me currently has a four bedroom house in Tokoroa on a 809m2 section listed at
$265,000. There’s also a three bedroom house on a 842m2 section listed at
$152,000.
And then there’s the locality. Taupo¯ , Tauranga, and Hamilton are all only around an hour away.
Communications manager Kerry Fabrie said there was a growing trend of people leaving cities for the likes of the South Waikato.
She said there were many benefits to living in the district including its ‘‘Central North Island location, good schools and daycares, a range of quality amenities, numerous walking and biking trails, lakes, rivers, and dams for sport, fishing, hunting, and outdoor pursuits, a growing population, and economic development and growth.’’ She also highlighted that the town has no traffic lights.
Chief executive Craig Hobbs said the main barrier was people simply seeing the council as a ‘‘stepping stone’’.
‘‘Health and safety managers are in high demand and can dictate a reasonable package which is something we need to be considering,’’ he said.
‘When we advertise a role we are dictated by the market to a degree. We will have a budget in place for that role and will try and work to that but there are certainly occasions where we have had to pay above what that job has been sized at to secure people.
‘‘I think this is a role that puts us in that position,’’ he said.