Investment in skills and training advocated

New Zealand desperately needed to invest in skills to develop the sort of economy that would allow everyone to have a prosperous future, Labour skills and training spokesman Grant Robertson said yesterday.

"Importing skills from other countries is simply a short-term palliative, not a long-term answer."

Mr Robertson was commenting on news the Labour Department had added five agricultural science occupations to its long-term skills shortage list to enable easier entry to the country for migrants who could fill the gaps.

Speaking in Dunedin, Mr Robertson, also Labour's deputy leader, said the skill shortages in agricultural science showed the National-led Government was still failing to recognise the need to develop a skills-based economy.

"To develop a clean, green economy, New Zealand must be an international leader in agriculture science. The failure to grow our skills base is not just happening in agriculture, either."

There was a growing and shameful skills shortage across many parts of the economy, he said.

The Government would rather bring in migrant building skills for the rebuild of Canterbury than it would invest in the country's young people to give them the skills needed to do the job.

Earlier in the week, the Westpac McDermott Miller employment confidence index showed New Zealanders were more pessimistic now about the job market than they had been for two years.

Mr Robertson said Kiwis could see what the Government was missing - that it needed to invest in expertise and skills across the economy if it was to create jobs and growth.

Asked what could be a first step in ensuring New Zealand retained agricultural skills, Mr Robertson said one thing he would recommend was ensuring New Zealand did enough to support people wanting to complete PhDs in agricultural science in this county.

"Do we have enough to show them a future here in New Zealand?"

Ensuring salary packages were adequate to retain scientists was something else to consider.

"But in the long-term, it comes down to creating a country where talented people want to stay."

One of the problems to emerge was that senior scientists were planning to retire, but there were not many people able to replace them.

Mr Robertson had also long considered making some attempts at discovering who could be brought back from overseas - New Zealanders who had been trained here, but had since been lured overseas.

Although acknowledging the term "workplace planning" could have negative connotations, the Wellington Central MP said the time had come to develop a skills strategy for the future.

- dene.mackenzie@odt.co.nz