Fishing boss returning to factory floor as shortage bites
Severe labour shortages will cost a fishing company up to $7 million and see its chief executive return to the factory floor.
Sealord’s Nelson factory has about 150 of the 450 staff needed, with 300 vacancies left unfilled.
The company’s chief executive, Doug Paulin, will follow the example of around 28 Sealord office staff who have been working in its wet fish factory for three weeks.
Paulin said they’d had ‘‘great feedback’’ from the people who took part.
‘‘It’s given them a new appreciation for the work that our staff do. Standing on your feet for hours at a time is actually quite draining.’’
Paulin is set to do his own shifts starting on Monday at 3pm with an induction.
The last time he worked in a factory was around 30 years ago, he said. The objective was ‘‘mainly just to show that people in the wet fish factory that we get that it’s going to be tough, and we’re trying everything we can.’’
Hoki season started at the end of May and runs until approximately the first week of September.
Paulin said they would be processing ‘‘maybe a third of the volume that we would traditionally do through hoki season’’, which was basically a ‘‘non event’’.
‘‘Sealord is no different to a number of different businesses, just for us the impact in our factory is significant,’’ he said.
‘‘There aren’t enough people in New Zealand to fill primary industry jobs that are currently available.’’
Paulin said losses would depend on how many staff the factory ended up with across the season. Pre-pandemic, around 90% of the 450 staff in the factory would have been on working holiday visas, he said, and there would be over 90,000 people travelling throughout New Zealand on these visas. ‘‘You remove those people from the equation for a raft of industries, including hospitality, and there just weren’t New Zealanders there to replace them.’’ Paulin said Sealord had been working with the horticulture and meat industry to overcome labour challenges, and had employed around 30 people from the freezing works as a result. Forming relationships that could be utilised into the future had been ‘‘a positive’’ out of the labour shortage, he said. Paulin said while he was ‘‘disappointed the Government weren’t more flexible as we’ve gone through this process’’, it ‘‘wasn’t their fault either’’.
‘‘We’ve all had to deal with the outcomes of Covid-19 and there are multiple industries impacted, so I’m relatively pragmatic about that, but still incredibly disappointed about the impact it’s going to have on Sealord as a business.
‘‘We’ll lose somewhere between five and $7 million in our wet fish factory for the year, based on how hoki season is going to go. It will be more or less depending on how many people we end up with across the season.’’
Next year was still going to be a difficult year for the seafood industry, he said, as fuel was ‘‘highly priced’’, and freights and costs were ‘‘at incredibly high levels’’.