The lucrative world of diesel mechanics in NZ's wine capital

Tuesday, 23 October 2018

New Zealand's sixth largest export, wine, relies on increasingly high-tech agricultural machinery.

Trimming, spraying and leaf plucking around Christmas followed by three months of intense harvesting and hauling form an intricate and logistical ballet all made possible with state-of-the-art farm machines.

Throughout the year, a horde of mechanics check, test, repair and replace the countries largest fleet of grape harvesting equipment in Marlborough, and business is booming.

However, a lack of agricultural-qualified mechanics in the region has businesses constantly on the lookout for mechanical talent; no agricultural industry experience required.

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A global shortage of mechanics that specialise in heavy vehicles and diesel engines reveals it isn't just a regional problem. Diesel motor mechanic has been added to New Zealand Immigration's long-term skill shortage list to fill the gap of qualified tradespeople.

Tractor Repairs and Spares manager Craig Wadsworth said they took all sorts of mechanics because of the limited number of people with the agricultural specific qualification.

'The majority of the work, any mechanic can do it,' Wadsworth said.

'We've found ourselves in a situation where we're growing really fast. We're constantly recruiting but spend a lot of time finding the right people.'

Wadsworth's business employed about 25 mechanics across two branches, a quarter of an estimated 100 mechanics working on vineyard machinery in the region.

The work was varied, Wadsworth said they saw a large amount of newer high hour tractors and machinery. The old machines, like the old Nairn harvesters popular in Australia, tended to be maintained by the smaller single-man operations or on-site engineers.

'We always have heaps of stuff to do,' he said.

There were no worries about robots taking their jobs or self-driving tractors. If it had moving parts, it would need repaired and serviced.

'There's always going to be demand for work like ours,' Wadsworth said.

'Machinery sales are on the rise, but the old stuff isn't getting retired, they're going into smaller vineyards,' Wadsworth said.

A new harvester could set a vineyard back a hefty sum, top of the line models costing $500,000 and a used harvester starting at about $20,000.

Drummond & Etheridge branch manager Alan Cottington said finding qualified diesel mechanics was a big problem for dealerships.

'It goes back to secondary school level,' Cottington said. 'People used to leave school and get a trade, now most students are going to university.

'On top of that, only 1 per cent of students going through mechanic apprenticeships go into the agricultural industry.'

Cottington said becoming a diesel mechanic was one of the cleanest, highest paid and had the most variety out of any of the mechanic disciplines.

'Most situations, you're working on a fairly tidy machine. Farmers tend to take great pride in their machinery and the bigger businesses have procedures where tractors are washed down after every use.

'You're working with some very sophisticated equipment, that's where a lot of the variety comes in and it's one of the best paid as far as mechanics go. Considerably higher than an automobile mechanic.'

Cottington said they aimed to take on one new apprentice, at least, at each of their eight locations in the South Island every year.

'That's just to cover future growth,' he said.