Displaying items by tag: employment

A Taranaki dairy farm has been fined $87,000 for employment breaches in a case reflecting the Labour Inspectorate’s intolerance of negligent employers.

Recent debate about unemployed New Zealanders and their keenness – or lack of it – to gain work was sparked after Prime Minister John Key commented how hard it is to get beneficiaries into seasonal work.

Dairy farmers who fail to keep written employment agreements or time records can expect to receive a sharp shock, as the Labour Inspectorate launches a nationwide probe into compliance in the industry.

Sixty new dairy process jobs were created when Fonterra opened four plants in the South Island recently.

With the annual value of the New Zealand agricultural machinery industry put at a conservative $1.3 billion, and agriculture in general being the key driver of NZ’s GDP, you’d think it would be easy to recruit youngsters into the industry.

South Auckland unemployed people have been bused to Hawkes Bay to work in orchards as part of a pilot RSE (recognised seasonal employer) scheme for New Zealanders.

The horticulture industry has an obligation to involve New Zealanders because they are the seedbed for workers for the industry, Jerf van Beek told a HortNZ conference session.

Whether it be feeding the calves after school or docking lambs, working on the family farm is a quintessential rural New Zealand right of passage for many kiwi kids.

Fonterra is set to cut hundreds of jobs from head office as it undergoes a major review of operations. 

New guides for migrant dairy workers and their employers have been re-released by the Government.