Raetihi
Participants described the main types of employment for people living in Raetihi as:
"Forestry, shearing, Army if they're lucky. Restaurants. Unless you want casual work it's usually the Mill, the Army, otherwise it's mainly casual work. Or it's hospitality or the mountain which is mostly seasonal. Shearing is seasonal. Market gardens…"
In terms of finding work, participants felt that work was available or accessed a lot through information personal or social networks:
"If you know the right people. It’s who you know. You can get tapped on the shoulder a lot here once people know of you."
A local recruitment service used to be available, but participants were not sure if this still existed.
"They used to list jobs and they’d help you but they'd get a portion of back pay, that sort of thing. And they really aimed at recruiting locals. They'd try to fit the right people to the right jobs."
"Ngāti Rangi is sort of taking that on with the younger ones, eh? You see that a lot more."
Participants noted that there was a growing number of people over the past three years in Raetihi who worked remotely, but this wasn’t necessarily sustained due to various reasons:
"A lot of people who I have met who are coming to the area work remotely. Since COVID it's definitely changed. But then, they quite often will leave again because they haven't got the services that they need or they can't get the housing, or they, their kids want to go to another high school, so they'll move away."
A key employment issue that was raised in 2020 was the challenge for business owners In Raetihi to find committed, reliable, semi-skilled or skilled staff. However, this was not raised as a key concern in 2023.
Participants did not perceive a high amount of business growth or new businesses opening up in Raetihi, and if they did it was mainly “one-man bands.” Some participants felt that it was difficult to know what businesses were operating and that information coordination could be better:
"There is a business hub, but it’s sort of, we almost need a white pages of the businesses, because people come here and they’re like, where’s the plumber? My idea is that we have an app. So you need a plumber? You click on that and you'll find the plumber."
"Well, that’s what’s on Raetihi.nz."
"Yes, I’ve seen that, but it hasn’t been updated and there is a lot more that could be on there."
"There is Thrive, the group. Thrive do work with businesses. But there’s lots of different people doing the same sort of thing and I think it gets a bit muddled. Particularly in Māori business, there’s a big focus on but it's lots of different... all at once.... They come in and don't seem to work together."
"There’s a lot of artists, too. I’ve seen so many people do arts, or crafts. There is so many creative people and I think the Arts are not at all out there in peoples’ minds as a thing, but there are lots of people out there just doing it on their own. "
One participant noted that a lack of available or suitable spaces from which to run businesses may hold back some people from opening business in Raetihi.
"There’s been a lot of people come through saying that they’re looking for a space to run a business, but they can’t find one."
"There are people wanting to, there’s a lot of potential. "
