With travellers wanting to take a working holiday now able come to Aotearoa for the first time since the start of the pandemic, the kiwifruit industry is highlighting there are plenty of jobs on offer.
(File image) Photo: RNZ / Susan Murray
New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers chief executive Colin Bond said pre-Covid New Zealand welcomed about 50,000 working holidaymakers into the country each year.
His industry required 24,000 seasonal workers for picking and packing roles and backpackers had traditionally make up about one quarter of the workforce.
"This year a record crop of over 190 million trays are forecast to be picked. Each tray has about 30 pieces of kiwifruit, meaning the industry needs all the help it can get."
Bond added almost all packhouses hd told NZKGI that they would be paying at least the living wage of $22.75 per hour. For kiwifruit picking an average of $27 per hour was paid last year when the minimum wage was $20 per hour, he said.
On the Thomas Bros Orchard in the Tasman District, the apple harvest was well under way, and kiwifruit picking was kicking off today.
They needed as many hands on deck as possible, Steve Thomas said.
There had been staff availability issues due to health and Covid-19, and fewer people in the country were after short term contracts, which was what fruit harvesting tended to offer.
There would be plenty of work available to any working holidaymakers, and every person they found would help stop a huge amount of fruit from rotting, Thomas said.
"It would certainly help the tail end of the season because we're not quite at the peak yet ... in the Nelson-Tasman once there is dual [apple and kiwifruit] harvest what we have to pick doubles, so that is coming up in the next few weeks."