Infrastructure sector leaders are concerned about the country’s long-term capacity to deliver on future investment, amidst staff losses to overseas over the past year.
Infrastructure New Zealand’s Pulse survey of 290 leaders – including consultants, local government, asset owners – found 48 percent reported losing staff to overseas in the past year.
Forty-four percent said their organisations reduced staff numbers over the past year.
Fifty-six percent of respondents considered the country ill-prepared if investment increased in the next 12 months.
The survey also found that 91 percent believe the election is creating uncertainty for infrastructure investment decisions, and 51 percent expect the next 12 months to be harder financially than the last.
Infrastructure New Zealand’s chief executive Nick Leggett said this highlights a serious challenge for New Zealand’s infrastructure sector.
“New Zealand has an enormous amount of infrastructure to build and look after. But the industry is telling us that they’re uncertain about the future, so they’re struggling to keep the people they need to get on with that work,” he said.
The biggest concern isn’t simply cashflow, but whether there’ll be a “credible pipeline of work” over the next year and beyond, said Leggett.
“The industry needs visibility of what’s coming, when it will be funded and when it will be delivered,” he said.
Meanwhile, 93 percent of respondents said cross party agreement on major infrastructure priorities was important.
Leggett said Infrastructure New Zealand want to see New Zealand legislate a 12-year funded and sequenced programme of work.
He said the survey results show that New Zealand’s economy is part of the global economic downturn, and that less work is being done on infrastructure in New Zealand.
Leggett said that needs to be turned around.
“We’ve got to recognise that when there comes an uplift in work in New Zealand, that we’ve got a fewer number of people who are skilled to be able to deliver that infrastructure, it’s going to cost us more to bring them back in to the industry, whether we’re bringing them back from overseas or just from other parts of the economy,” he said.