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Speaker 1: The trouble with a booming area back home is you

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Speaker 1: need people to make the boom work. Canterbury's got a

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Speaker 1: twenty billion dollar infrastructure pipeline lined up, but a new

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Speaker 1: report this morning suggested labor is an issue, as in

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Speaker 1: the people. They will need an additional twenty three thousand

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Speaker 1: workers to make all this happen, so there is some

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Speaker 1: concern they can't get them. Business Canterbury CEO LeAnn Watson's

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Speaker 1: with us LeeAnne, good morning morning. Make funny thing. Kind

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Speaker 1: of a good problem to have, isn't it sort.

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Speaker 2: Of Well, yeah, absolutely, I think it's great news for

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Speaker 2: businesses that Canterbary is looking at that construction thur And

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Speaker 2: over the next few years, and that strong pipeline will

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Speaker 2: hopefully mean better roads, better bridges and further growth in

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Speaker 2: housing stock to make sure that we maintain our relatively

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Speaker 2: affordable and of course the attractive for subduring business here

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Speaker 2: in Canabury. So a positive problem to have. That's certainly

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Speaker 2: one that we need to lean into and work out

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Speaker 2: how we address.

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Speaker 1: Do we have any understanding of it? Because unemployments up,

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Speaker 1: so labor should be available. Construction has been particularly hit,

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Speaker 1: so therefore there should be capacity to do. So what's

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Speaker 1: gone or going wrong? Why can't we join the stops?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And according to our Business Canterbury's most recent quarterly survey,

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Speaker 2: which we just released last week, both the civil and

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Speaker 2: construction sector here in Canbury are definitely looking to gear

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Speaker 2: up the growth over the next year. Sixty four percent

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Speaker 2: said they were expecting to hire more staff in the

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Speaker 2: next twelve months, and that's compared to an average of

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Speaker 2: fifty five percent across all industry. So I think there

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Speaker 2: is a you know, there's certainly good intentions there. What

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Speaker 2: we need to make sure is that we've got that

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Speaker 2: connection between the lineup of good vocational level skills representing

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Speaker 2: that highest area of the labor market demand from business,

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Speaker 2: and of course we've got the likely highest proportion of

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Speaker 2: outline migration flows. So there's a couple of things that

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Speaker 2: play there. So look, it is a challenging situation and

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Speaker 2: we need to make sure we've got really fit for

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Speaker 2: purpose globally competitive vocational training systems as well, which is

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Speaker 2: something that is not We're not where we need to

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Speaker 2: be right now.

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Speaker 1: No, we're not. And when you talk of that, do

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Speaker 1: you talk of Canterbury or do we talk of the

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Speaker 1: whole country. In other words, that this popped up anywhere,

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Speaker 1: we'd have the same problem.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I think we would certainly not unique to Canterbury.

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Speaker 2: We know that changes to a vocational system also need

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Speaker 2: to be aligned with things like an immigration policy, and

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Speaker 2: their immigration policy, particularly for certain sectors, will continue to

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Speaker 2: play an important role in meeting New Zealand's workforce challenges.

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Speaker 2: So you know, those two things need to go hand

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Speaker 2: in hand, along with things like better recognition of high

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Speaker 2: quality international vocational qualifications. That will certainly help in the

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Speaker 2: short term while that reform is underway, and we know

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Speaker 2: that it takes you know, several years to train up

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Speaker 2: you know, the right qualifications and skills in sectors such

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Speaker 2: as construction as well.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any sense so you need twenty three thousand,

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Speaker 1: how many of those twenty three thousand are going to

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Speaker 1: come off, say the stadium when that's finished in a

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Speaker 1: year or so and move on to something else versus

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Speaker 1: a whole flood of people into the region.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean we've got things like in christ

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Speaker 2: Hitch right now, we've got the Court Theater being coming

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Speaker 2: on stream this year, and then of course, as you've mentioned,

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Speaker 2: we've got the stadium, so those workers will come off

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Speaker 2: those big projects and will be available for other work.

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Speaker 2: So it'll be interesting just to see exactly how that

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Speaker 2: does play out. And of course we do know as

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Speaker 2: well that we've got reasonably high unemployment rates as you

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Speaker 2: mentioned at the moment compared to say eighteen months ago

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Speaker 2: where we were talking about significant labor market shortages, so

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Speaker 2: we need to make sure we've got all of the

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Speaker 2: people that are currently unemployed in work, as well as

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Speaker 2: looking at those other settings around vocational education and immigration teams.

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Speaker 1: Always good to have you on the program and day

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Speaker 1: good luck with it. Leam Watson, who's the business at

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Speaker 1: Canterbury CEO with

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Speaker 2: Us For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live

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