Farra Engineering chief executive Gareth Evans stands in the company’s workshop. PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSONOtago and Southland’s manufacturing sector is urging the Government to extend an apprenticeship scheme to help ease a "chronic" labour shortage. "We’ve finally got a scheme that brings apprentices in and it seems like madness to stop it," he said. "We have a lot of infrastructure projects starting here but we don’t have anyone to build them," Mr Evans said. United Machinists chief executive Sarah Ramsay said the scheme was a "big incentive" for the engineering firm to take on an extra apprentice.

Source: Otago Daily Times April 28, 2022 22:35 UTC