Labour crisis: Aus and NZ machinery giant ‘at least’ 400-600 diesel mechanics down across dealership network

An agriculture machinery conglomerate has laid bare the impacts of the ongoing skilled labour shortage across the sector, saying every dealership is down “at least two or three” diesel mechanics at any one time. Across CNH Industrial Australia and New Zealand’s network of 200 dealerships — including Case IH, New Holland Agriculture, Case Construction, New Holland Construction, Flexi-coil and IVECO — the numbers stack up. The machinery giant is now training more people than it needs, to create a buffer for when apprentices leave, chasing “riches” in competing industries such as mining. The comments were made by CNH Industrial Australia and New Zealand managing director Brandon Stannett during a panel session at Dowerin GWN7 Machinery Field Days inaugural Perth launch last week. He called on more to be done to get skilled labour into Australia, echoing concerns by National Farmers Federation chief executive Tony Mahar ahead of the National Jobs Summit in Canberra this week. “We’ve got probably two or three open roles in every single location across the country at any one time and we’ve got 200 locations in our dealer network,” Mr Stannett said. “And that’s just for diesel mechanics. “I think it is about getting a much larger number of people with skills into the country right now in order to meet the demand. The demand is clear.” The global agricultural machinery industry is forecast to be worth AU $367 billion by 2028. Mr Stannett said skills and training went “hand in hand” with addressing the staff shortages. “Across our organisation as a manufacturer and across our dealer network, we’re investing in training more people than we need, because we know that those skilled apprentices will fall off as they gain qualifications and go seeking riches in adjacent industries,” he said. While automation has buoyed hopes for a solution, products are not likely to hit the market for another couple of years. “I think the next phase of automation will be guided automation, where you’ll have for example, the combine instructing the tractors with the chaser bins — where it is and what to do,” Mr Stannett said. “And maybe those tractors don’t have drivers and that should be a relatively simple task. “I think you’ll see that in mass commercial availability inside the next couple of years and we’ll certainly build on that.” It would be the less-skilled labour, rather than the desperately needed skilled workforce, that such machinery and technology would replace, however. “The jobs will be different,” Mr Stannett said. “You will need higher skilled people to operate those autonomous machines because rather than having one driver in charge of a $500,000 tractor, you might have one operator who’s in charge of a $5 million fleet.” If left to continue, the labour crunch could put immense pressure on agricultural machinery suppliers across the country. “If you’re rushed in delivering a machine to a customer because you’re taking a skilled technician off a problem to do the pre-delivery work, and maybe you don’t do that pre-delivery work as well as you could because you’ve rushed it because you’ve got to get back to the critical work, then the machine that the customer first has is poor,” Mr Stannett said. “And that probably creates a recurring cycle of needing to go back and touch that machine. “I think if we could do it with the right level of labour, you can take the right amount of time in that first step.”