Perth Airport rejects NZ ads targeting FIFO workers: agency

SOURCE: Shortlist
Perth Airport declined to host a series of poster ads attempting to recruit FIFO workers in WA for NZ jobs, says the employment marketing agency that created the ads. Speaking at the RHUB NZ event last week, Hamish Price of HainesAttract said the company had developed a campaign for NZ regional economic agency Venture Taranaki, which was hoping to lure NZ expats working in WA, to return.

He said industry surveys showed that the local oil and gas sector alone needed 100 engineers, 70 operators and 50 technical staff within 12 months. Projections indicated the region as a whole would need an additional 14,000 workers by 2035, he said. Taranaki is one of NZ’s most prospective oil and gas regions. Price said HainesAttract launched the campaign this month, including poster advertising, a website, YouTube clips, a Facebook page and radio ads in WA.

The major target of the campaign was expat New Zealanders who knew they could earn higher salaries in the UK or Australia, but missed the lifestyle back home. Price said HainesAttract sought to run a series of ads at Perth Airport playing on the downsides of life in remote, dusty resources sites, but airport management chose not to run the ads.

Perth Airport declined to comment to Shortlist.

Price said he had no comment on that decision, other than to note that Australian firms were regularly recruiting directly in Taranaki, and 73% of long-term departures in the region were to Australia – higher than the NZ national average.

He said so far 10% of visits to the campaign website were from the UK and 19% from Australia, and it had also attracted print, TV and radio press coverage.