OSM Industry Roadmap Project 2024
Comprehensive MMC resources to power the industry.
Supply Chain Mapping
Low Carbon Housing
Defining our Language
CAST Report
logs4jobs
Filling the skilled worker shortage
New Zealand is experiencing an affordable housing crisis - 30,000 more houses are required each year. Rural New Zealanders are the underdogs to the development of our cities. Young people can't afford to buy a home, start families, or start businesses. Every day NZ exports its rural resources - raw logs - to China. The valuable logs are gone, our timber mills are closing. Manufacturing the logs into panels or components of houses adds value, profit and creates jobs. This is innovative construction - turning logs into houses utilising digital technology and creating work.
New Zealand has a shortage of skilled workers and this problem will only get worse. Statistics New Zealand estimates a growth in employment of 107,800 jobs in primary industries, manufacturing and construction by 2023 [1]. Number of new people needed by 2020 in Building and Construction: 64,000 (Source: GotATrade)
It is the skilled jobs within these areas which will see the biggest growth; technical operators, business manager, architects, planners, designers, surveyors and engineers.
Women are the untapped workforce able to fill the future skilled worker shortage. Under-worked and under-utilised, women make excellent employees - they are more safety conscious and more productive (DestinationTrades).
PrefabNZ, in collaboration with Carter Holt Harvey Woodproducts, BCITO and CareersNZ, has produced this logs4jobs video to:
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Raise the awareness of young people, especially females, of the work opportunities
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Normalise females in Primary Industries, Manufacturing, Design and Construction
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Alert employers to the ability and value of females
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Highlight the range of rewarding jobs involved in turning logs into houses
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Demonstrate that these roles are high-skill and involve technology
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Demonstrate that our natural resources - forestry, can become a higher value product by undergoing innovative construction methods
PrefabNZ's logs4jobs initiative was an entrant in the Diversity Awards 2017.