Auckland Airport's international terminal. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Auckland Airport is looking to put more women to work in highly skilled roles, with more than 50 vacant infrastructure and operations jobs to fill.
The airport's chief corporate services officer Melanie Dooney said the organisation's workforce grew 24 percent over the 2023 financial year to 579 people, but it needed many more to support multi-billion-dollar, large-scale upgrades to the airport over the next few years.
"It's certainly not without its challenges but we want to make it easier for women to take up these positions allowing them to balance work and home life," Dooney said.
Auckland Airport was actively recruiting 32 roles in infrastructure, from the planning and design phases across many of its projects, into construction and delivery, with 25 roles available in operations.
"To achieve our work programme we are in the market for a wide range of skill sets - everyone from field engineers to project managers to health and safety advisors," she said.
"Our ambition is to ensure diversity across all parts of our business, and seeing more women in infrastructure and operations roles is a key part of this.
"Women are incredibly effective in front-line roles and in construction, however, the aviation industry is currently under-represented by females, particularly where there is shift work involved or where roles can be dynamic and unpredictable."
Dooney said the airport was improving its parental leave policies as part of the drive to attract more women into its workforce.
The improved policies include:
- New parental leave policy tops-up primary carer government-funded rate to 100 percent of salary for 18 weeks
- Partners receive six weeks paid leave (statutory entitlement is up to two weeks unpaid)
- Primary carers receive continued employer KiwiSaver contributions, and on their return to work, five additional days of leave
