The Mid-Canterbury town of Ashburton is on a mission to attract more workers.

Ashburton has 500 vacant jobs and is on a mission to attract workers. COLIN WILLISCROFT took a closer look at its attractions.

The small rural town affectionately known as Ash-vegas – despite having no casino – is looking for people.

With 500 jobs it cannot fill, it needs workers.

The mid-Canterbury township – once home to TV star Robyn Malcolm, former prime minister Jenny Shipley, and international cyclist Hayden Roulston – is better known as a pitstop for travellers en route to somewhere else.

COLIN WILLISCROFT/STUFF Parking is easy in the Ashburton town centre.

But former Crusaders chief, now Ashburton District Council chief executive Hamish Riach is on a new crusade to promote the advantages of the district. He points out it has good schools, affordable housing, excellent amenities, and an abundance of jobs.

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COLIN WILLISCROFT/STUFF Annie Rhodes, with granddaughter Emily Irving, returned to Ashburton to be nearer family.

Ashburton has been rated by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research as the nation's sixth most desirable district to do business and 12th for quality of life.

Annie Rhodes is convinced.

She moved back to Ashburton from Christchurch to be closer to family and has no regrets. "I'm loving it. The people are really friendly, it's easy to find parking, easy to go shopping and when you do go shopping you're treated as a person, not a number."

She said housing was also a lot cheaper than it was in places like Christchurch.

Katie Irving has lived in Ashburton all her life and though she admits she was tempted to leave when she was younger, she has found to a good place to bring up her family.

According to QV, the median price for a house in the Ashburton district is $355,000, compared to Selwyn at $553,000, Waimakariri at $445,000 and Hurunui at $386,000. This compares well with Christchurch where the median price is $494,000.

COLIN WILLISCROFT/STUFF Katie Irving says Ashburton is a great place to bring up a family.

But a new report warns that the district needs to better sell itself if it wants to start filling the more than 500 job vacancies available.

The district had Mt Hutt skifield on its doorstep, mountainbike trails and the boating mecca of Lake Hood, which has a rowing course as well as water-skiing and jet-skiing areas.

Within the town is a 37-hectare green oasis, the Ashburton Domain, while indoor swimming and sports are housed in the more recently opened EA networks centre.

But the report identified shortfalls, saying Ashburton needed a wider choice of shops and more family-friendly attractions.

Ashburton mayor Donna Favel said the council had to focus on making Ashburton a great place to live if it was to compete with other regions and hold on to the skilled workers it had.

Of the 503 jobs the report identified as being vacant, 159 were in primary industries, 121 were in manufacturing and 223 were in the services sector, which includes retail, hospitality and tradespeople.

ERIN TASKER/STUFF Ashburton's Mayor Donna Favel says other regions are also having difficulty filling job vacancies.

The report included a plan to address labour shortages in the district. The plan's focus was on how to promote the district as the most attractive rural place to work in the country, with support from Ashburton District Council, Ashburton businesses, and central government.​

Recruitment company Canstaff's managing director Matt Jones said he had seen first-hand a worker shortage in Ashburton for at least the past 15 years, but said there was plenty going for the area, especially for families.

"It's not really a hard sell for those people considering it."

Crime in the district has risen slightly during the past year, compared to the previous 12 months, according to police statistics.

From October 2017 to the end of September 2018, there were 1065 crimes reported, an increase of 107 on the 958 for the same period a year earlier. The majority were property crime.

The biggest increase was in burglaries, with the 441 reported up from 335 a year earlier, while the 527 thefts was up on the 499 a year earlier. The 83 assaults reported were down from 102 for the previous 12 months, while sexual assaults fell from 16 to eight. Robberies stayed the same at six.

ATTRACTING MIGRANTS

Jobs have attracted new people and new communities to Ashburton. Census data shows the Pasifika population leapt tenfold from about 100 in 2001 to more than 1000 in 2013. A similar leap was seen in the Asian population, with 85 per cent coming from the Philippines, predominantly to work in the dairy industry.

COLIN WILLISCROFT/STUFF Mid Canterbury farmer Grant Irvine says a lot of potential jobs are not even advertised as there is little likelihood of them being filled.

Grant Irvine, who farms near Hinds, said it has always been hard to find good staff, but it has got even more difficult in recent years, because Immigration New Zealand had made it more difficult to hire staff from overseas.

He said there was a shortage of people born in New Zealand who could fill jobs in the Ashburton area. He had contacted Work and Income in the past to find farm workers and was told there was no one available.

"There's just not the Kiwis there to do the jobs. That's why we need migrants to fill those vacancies."

Irvine recently hired a farm worker from Sri Lanka but, even though he went through a recruitment company, which cost him about $3500, it took four months from the time that worker was identified to the time he arrived at the farm. That was too long.

"It's making it really difficult for people who need staff. The people making those decisions need to get out to the coalface and see just how desperate things are."

Farming jobs paid well, he said.

The starting pay for a dairy job in Mid Canterbury for someone with no experience was about $50,000 for a 45-hour week, he said, and a worker with two years' experience could earn more than $60,000 for a second-in-charge position.

Unless Immigration NZ relaxed its attitude, the situation was only going to get worse. Regional New Zealand was suffering because of policies designed to curb migrant growth in the main centre, he said.

DAVID WALKER/STUFF For many Ashburton is a town they drive through on their way to somewhere else.

FRENZ Recruitment and Immigration director Christiaan Arns said bringing in workers from overseas was harder than it used to be due to Immigration New Zealand rule changes that did not allow for farm workers at a lower level to bring their families, get a visa duration of more than a year or access national healthcare, even though they paid the same taxes as New Zealanders.

"When you look at what other countries are offering, New Zealand is becoming decreasingly attractive to prospective overseas workers," he said.

Immigration NZ visa services manager Michael Carley said New Zealand was an attractive place for migrants to live and work, illustrated by an 18 per cent increase in labour market tested visa approvals between 2016-17 and 2017-18.

He said employers must demonstrate no New Zealanders could do jobs before recruiting migrant workers for lower-skilled jobs.

The essential skills policy lets employers continue to employ temporary migrant workers where there were genuine shortages, he said.

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said an announcement on changes to the system for issuing work visas, which would help people in the regions, would be made soon.

WARWICK SMITH/STUFF Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says the government is developing a more responsive immigration system.

BY THE NUMBERS:

Population: 34,500 (as at June 30, 2018)

Median age: 39.3 years

Unemployment rate 1.9 per cent in June 2018 (New Zealand average 4.5 per cent)

Median income in 2016 (over 20,820 earners): $43,300

Median house price: $355,281

Average summer temperature: 17 degrees Celsius

Average winter temperature: 6C

Schooling: 19 primary schools, two colleges