Waiouru
It was felt that there were many jobs of different types available in Waiouru:
"There’s vacancies across the board."
"All kinds of jobs. They can take a long time to recruit though. It could be three or four months, easily."
Tank outside Waiouru Army Museum.
In 2020, participants noted that local contractors are not always able to attract enough staff to fill vacancies in the area. Whereas poor pay, along with lack of accommodation, were considered to be the key barriers to recruitment, then, in 2023 as highlighted above in the section on housing, lack of accommodation was highlighted as they key issue to attracting workers in Waiouru:
"When (companies servicing the NZDF) have positions, come up for jobs, you know, in camp, when they advertise they actually can't interview people that don't live in Waiouru. They've had people apply for jobs from Auckland or Wellington that really want to move here but there's no housing available."
"They’re really restricted in who they can actually employ."
"You kind of can't entice people to come and work for you because it's in Waiouru because, oh no, the housing. We have other things we can use to attract people to come, but it’s finding a house. Like the hunting and the skiing and all of that. They all love that. You can sell the job. Cheap rent! If only we can get you a house."
"What I’m finding is that they are only employing young, single, people because they might put up with the barracks. But whereas the families, there's nothing. They can't offer them anything. So they don't come. You can look at CVs and think it’s not even worth offering them the job."
Obtaining security clearances for workers also posed a challenge to recruiting staff to Waiouru.
"My god! You'd like, hire a person to come and work for you and they'd not get through their security checks or it would take three or four months. So you've got to escort them in every morning. Basically, supervise them."
"Or they've come in and then four months later you've found out that he assaulted someone or something and so you have to go back and tell them you can't actually have this job."
"You know that house you've just got? You're out of your house. The school that your kids have gone into?"
"I know they're not supposed to but they have to ask them at interview, have you gone to prison? Or they find out down the line."
Working and living in Waiouru however was considered convenient in that:
"There’s not many places where you can go to work and think, oh, I’ll shoot home and stoke the fire up or put the washing out. Put the crock pot on."
