THE EARTHQUAKE Commission of New Zealand has said it wants to recruit Irish construction workers as part of a major rebuilding project in Christchurch following three earthquakes in the region over the last 12 months.
At a media briefing in the country’s second largest city, the head of the commission, Ian Simpson, said about 100,000 houses needed repairs.
He estimated that as many as 8,000 building labourers would be required to complete the reconstruction.
Mr Simpson said that while many labourers were available in New Zealand there would almost certainly be a need to go overseas to recruit qualified people in order to complete the amount of construction work necessitated by the earthquakes.
He said “initial approaches” had been made in Ireland. “We know there are similar workers – English-speaking [and a] large unemployment rate of skilled workers – so we can bring those in when we need them.”
There could be vacancies for as many as 1,000 Irish construction workers.
The reconstruction project is likely to last at least five years, and many of the positions advertised by the commission are permanent. They have salaries that start from around €30,000 and rise to €60,000.
A 6.3 magnitude earthquake in February was the most severe of a string of quakes in Christchurch and its surrounding Canterbury region over the last 12 months. Much of the city is still in ruins with entire suburbs declared uninhabitable.
Mr Simpson said and emergency repairs had now been carried out on 22,000 homes in order to keep them watertight, warm and secure, and €800 million has been paid in compensation to victims of the disasters.
An ambitious blueprint to rebuild the city was unveiled last week.
Christchurch mayor Bob Parker said it offered a vision of a “safe, sustainable, green, high-tech, low-rise city in a garden”.
The Construction Industry Federation welcomed the news that workers from Ireland would be actively sought. The Federation also expressed concern however that the industry would lose more workers to emigration.
