Manpower Recruitment Services Opening

Thursday 17 March 2005

As the founder of the Mayor's Taskforce for Jobs, I've had the happy experience of seeing our goal of a return to full employment come very close to a reality.

You will all in fact be aware that while we have been trying to have an economic boom here in New Zealand, we have not been able to fill all the seats available.

It has been one of the great warnings of all time for our economy that we must get smarter and more skilled if we are to continue down the path of prosperity.

The skills and capacity gaps we have all seen have meant that New Zealand Inc has just missed out on some great opportunities.

I'm fairly sure that the future projections for a service such as yours must be looking pretty good, particularly in Christchurch.

Christchurch has gone through profound change in the last five years. As the export facing primary trading city of New Zealand, we can be relied on to show how well, or otherwise, the global economy is.

We have gone from a sleepy backwater to become New Zealand's second largest city. We are the New Zealand capital for high tech. We are a major international education provider.

The best way to hold on to our quality of life is to become willing to operate a whole lot smarter and quicker. Services such as yours can play a big role in helping us make this step up the global pecking order quicker and more understood.

I'll finish by giving your top management the same tip we handed out to Virgin Blue when they got here. You'll find it easy to move staff here, but you'll find it a real problem to try to get them to move on again after that.