Help is at hand for job seekers and businesses in the Fiordland following the appointment of Fiordland Employment and Resource Planner based in Te Anau.

Glyn Saunders moved to Te Anau in October to take up the two-year fixed term role, newly established by Great South, in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development and Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, to identify and implement redeployment opportunities in the Fiordland community in response to the significant impact of COVID-19 upon Fiordland’s tourism industry. 

After three months in the job, Mr Saunders has become a familiar figure to businesses in Te Anau, walking the beat as it were, to establish connections and gain an understanding of the community reeling from the impact of a year without normal trade.

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He said a strong focus of the role was on redeploying Fiordland jobseekers with roles within the Fiordland area, connecting them with the government agencies and support packages available and helping people navigate beaucratic systems.

He has discovered the region has suffered from two different job loss impacts, “loss of full-time employment and, a less obvious, under-employment of reduced hours or loss of second incomes”.

Mr Saunders said tourism previously made up 75 percent of the available jobs in the region and there was an estimated 200 to 250 people now unemployed in the area.

He said it was difficult to get an accurate picture as “unemployed were not necessarily signing up for benefits”.

In the 12 weeks prior to Christmas Mr Saunders observed an average of nine jobs each week appearing on social media job site such as Fiordland Job Board and Backpacker Jobs sites.

One of the issues he has found is that job seekers and business do not have a centralised marketplace for job vacancies “there’s a disconnect” and he sees a need for a local job connecting service.

His role is also to manage demand for resources for recovery projects, assist local employers with accessing funding opportunities, work closely with education providers in the areas to establish connections into apprenticeships programmes and employment opportunities, and support the coordination of the ‘Jobs for Nature’ scheme in Fiordland.

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He has had one initiative approved so far – funding has been approved for an Environment Southland weeding of Department of Conservation land project and he is in the process of getting further funds approved to accelerate existing planned nature projects.

A workplace leadership course is to be held next month to help business owners identify and encourage leadership qualities and grow skills within the workforce and also learn new skills.

“It’s about growing the town’s collective skills”.

Mr Saunders said it was clear the Te Anau needed to become a destination in its own right and he has confidence that will happen over time, particularly looking at ideas such as establishing education opportunities in the town in conjunction with Southern Institute of Technology.