{"id":68603,"date":"2025-10-09T21:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/68603\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T21:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:13:09","slug":"unheard-of-dozens-apply-for-te-anau-factory-hand-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/68603\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Unheard of’: Dozens apply for Te Anau factory hand role"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Susan Edmunds of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

Fiordland Lobster Company group human resources manager Toni Magi says she’s never seen anything like it.<\/p>\n

The company recently received 91 applications for a factory hand role in Te Anau and more than 120 for a position in Auckland, not including overseas applicants and those without work visas.<\/p>\n

“There’s a\u00a0shortage of roles\u00a0within New Zealand. There’s certainly not the wide\u00a0range of positions\u00a0that are touted to be available and people are desperate for work.”<\/p>\n

The jobs were entry level roles that did not require specific qualifications.<\/p>\n

The increased number of applications had been noticeable in the past 10 to 12 months, she said.<\/p>\n

People were willing to move to Te Anau for work, she said. Those numbers in particular were “unheard of” for such a small centre.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s hard for jobhunters because they’ve got to be able to set themselves apart and be the one that stands out in all those applications.”<\/p>\n

She said more recruitment agencies were cold calling, too.<\/p>\n

Sometimes applicants made silly mistakes, she said.<\/p>\n

“I think reading the requirements of the role, you know, always double check what you’re sending in because the amount of people that will apply for a job that’s actually got some other company’s name or the wrong job title or, you know, if we say send a cover letter, that’s your opportunity to sell yourself and they don’t. So, it’s just those little things that are going to set people apart.”<\/p>\n

Neil Webster, country manager for Employment Hero, agreed times were tough for job applicants.<\/p>\n

“Yes, there’s growth in pockets, but we’re hearing from SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises) every day that the pressure is very real. Heading into December, it’s clear many New Zealanders are still scrambling for stability, and businesses are feeling it too.”<\/p>\n

Jobhunter Emily Turner is one of those people. She has been looking for work, at a management level, for 16 months.<\/p>\n

She had applied for about 50 jobs and had more than 10 interviews.<\/p>\n

She said there seemed to be particular problems for people who were looking for more senior positions. “No hiring manager is going to hire me for a lower level role when I often have more experience than they do.”<\/p>\n

She said she was now seriously considering moving to Australia but it was a difficult proposition because she owned her home and had an ageing parent to worry about. But she had reached the end of her interest-only home loan period and also had to pay body corporate fees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Susan Edmunds of RNZ Fiordland Lobster Company group human resources manager Toni Magi says she’s never seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-68603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}