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NZTech Inform – challenging the skills shortage
EROAD has announced it would acquire privately-owned rival Coretex (for between $158 and $188 million) to increase its scale and accelerate its growth. Once complete, the combined organisation will become a significant global supplier of in-vehicle fleet management solutions and telematics in a market estimated to be worth $750 billion by 2030. Steven Newman, CEO of EROAD and Selwyn Pellett, CEO of Coretex are both great examples of Kiwi tech entrepreneurs with previous successes (Navman, Endace, Imarda) and continue to show how to build world leading tech businesses from New Zealand. Congratulations from NZTech to both the EROAD and Coretex teams.
As part of the Digital Technology Industry Transformation Plan (ITP), we have been working on developing a tech story for New Zealand. The New Zealand Tech and Innovation Story (Tech Story) is a marketing initiative designed to enhance New Zealand’s international reputation for delivering world-class solutions and present New Zealand as a compelling place for tech talent and investment. Last week, the Summary Analysis of the background research was published.
Throughout the research, several recurring themes emerged. One consistent strength identified was the continued recognition of New Zealand as an open, stable and trusted economy that is easy to do business with. This is combined with the perception that our tech sector punches above its weight and despite being relatively small, we produce high quality and innovative companies. Now work is underway to develop and test the key marketing messages.
Last week, we finalised the Critical Skills Survey Report. The key insight is that despite thousands of open roles, very few tech employers are trying immigration to source staff. This is due to the difficulty of navigating the process. For the 24 percent of respondents that did try immigration, only 13 percent have been successful, with almost all being told the applicant didn’t have ‘unique experience or technical skills’ that couldn’t be found in New Zealand. Today, we are sharing this information with Ministers Robertson, Clark and Faafoi and their officials with a request to urgently review what constitutes ‘unique experience and technical skills’ for immigration approval.
Ngā mihi
Graeme Muller
CEO
NZTech
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