Ohakune businesses are bracing for the "inevitable" knock-on effects of job cuts and operational downsizing on Mt Ruapehu's skifelds.
Karl Christensen, owner of Mountain Rocks Cafe in Ohakune (pictured) says businesses in the town know a thing or two about resilience. Photo: RNZ/ Jimmy Ellingham
Just six weeks into the ski season, warm, wet weather has left most of the mountain barren, rocky and un-skiable - putting 125 workers on Tūroa and Whakapapa out of a job.
Yesterday's redundancy announcement, by Ruapehu Alpine Lifts, has now prompted a number of departures at the Ohakune ski worker accommodation run by Logan Akers.
He said the accommodation he purchased last year and converted for staff lodging had been fully occupied last winter.
Just seven ski workers had been staying there this winter - and only one of them was staying on.
"The thing for us is finding anyway we can utilise the building we have to cover the shortfall in our mortgage payments over the next few months," Akers said.
Despite offering discounted accommodation to ski staff who have lost jobs on Mt Ruapehu, people had told him they just could not afford to stay put without work, he said.
Warm, wet weather has left most of Mt Ruapehu barren, rocky and un-skiable. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Ruapehu District mayor Don Cameron said the Ministry of Social Development was doing what it could to help ski workers on that front.
"They're bringing a lot of resources in, over the next few days, to talk to everyone that's out of work, to offer them work. There is work available, within the district," he said.
Ironically, the job cuts have happened right as the central North Island grapples with a labour shortage, exacerbated by two years of closed borders.
A regional insights report prepared by MBIE in June, released under the Official Information Act, described the critical need for more staff to keep Ohakune businesses going.
The report said the problem was so bad one restaurant had been unable to open for two years.
It also discussed the lack of customers and "dire" need for tourists to return to the ski fields.
Akers feared yesterday's announcement would only serve to discourage tourists further - with widespread impacts.
"It's everyone. It's from mum and dad fish-n-chip shops through to the biggest hotels and motels... I imagine all of the existing bookings have been cancelled."
Ruapehu Mountain Motel and Lodge co-owner Leigh Berry believed there was plenty of other reasons to visit the township.
She said tourists might be enticed to try mountain biking, hiking trails or the Sky Waka gondola on Whakapapa.
Berry also hoped ski staff who have enjoyed living in Ohakune would be able to stay put too.
"They certainly enjoy the area, they love the town... if they can stay we're willing to support them in any way we can," she said.
"If we can keep them around to see if we're going to get snowfall in September, that would be really great."
But for some of those staff, a trip down to the mainland might be the ticket.
South Island ski fields have been enjoying bountiful snow dumps and thousands of visitors this year, and NZ Ski, which runs Mt Hutt, Coronet Peak and the Remarkables, still has roles to fill.
Chief executive Paul Anderson said that was despite employing more staff than usual to account for Covid-19 absences.
"I know our HR teams have been working together to see if staff want to come down. There's certainly hospitality roles at our mountains and also down in Queenstown. I'd encourage any of those staff who want to stay in the ski industry - there will be roles down here for them down here through 'till the beginning of October," he said.
He had sympathy for the North Island ski fields, saying this year's bad weather was particularly "brutal" off the back of Covid-19.
However back in Ohakune, Karl Christensen, owner of Mountain Rocks Cafe, was staying positive.
He said some businesses in town had survived eruptions in the middle of ski season in the 1990s and 2007 - as well as two years of Covid's impacts - so they knew a thing or two about resilience.
"Everyone's kind of knuckled down and we all know how to do this. We're just hunkering down and hoping for the best," he said.
