The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) has been forced to make changes to its operations due to an ongoing critical staff shortage. The NZDF had to change the size of its response to Cyclone Gabrielle and the capabilities it could offer, and it has been forced to pay all personnel up to $10,000 each to keep them in their jobs. The NZDF has now made two separate rounds of payments in a bid to keep people in their roles and stem the flow of people leaving. The high attrition rate over the past two years has meant it had lost key personnel with highly specialised and sought-after skills that take years to develop, leaving the force with crucial gaps. There are not enough personnel to run three naval offshore patrol vessels, and the Air Force P-3K2 Orions were put into retirement five months early because of the shortage of trained staff. Three ships are also tied up at Devonport unable to be used because of the lack of staff to run them.
The NZDF used $10 million of government funding to make one-off payments of $10,000 to people in “strategically significant” uniformed trades and units which had been heavily affected by resignations. That retention payment was applied across the three services: Army, Navy and Airforce. The money was paid in two tranches. The first was in February, and the second lot of $5000 will be paid in May. The NZDF has also decided to expand the initiative to all regular force personnel and civilians to reduce the rate of attrition.
NZDF Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Kevin Short said plumbers, electricians, carpenters, Special Forces, Navy propulsion experts, and middle managers are just some of the most critical trades within the forces. He hoped the payments might lure people into staying, but he said it could take up to four years to train people to replace those key roles. The high level of people quitting is not only impacting the basic functions of the army but also hurting its capacity to respond in an emergency, like Cyclone Gabrielle.
