The kiwifruit industry is setting up a working group with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to improve employment compliance after an investigation found eight illegal workers in the Bay of Plenty.

New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc CEO Mike Chapman says the industry compliance strategy working group was established in May following the MBIE operation with Immigration New Zealand.

The operation resulted in 18 contractors facing enforcement action.

MBIE has issued 22 Improvement Notices for 39 minimum employment standard breaches.

Mike says given the industry employs 6000 people during harvest, the breaches could be viewed as relatively minor, as most involved record keeping.

'We don't yet know the full details of the eight illegal workers.

'However, NZKGI always encourages total compliance and creating a compliance culture in the industry that is self-regulating is why we have set up the Industry Compliance Strategy, which is currently under development with MBIE's compliance team.”

NZKGI has also put in place a number of labour initiatives to ensure the industry not only has sufficient staff to cope with growing fruit volumes, but also assist 'kiwifruit industry employers to be good employers, who are able to attract and retain valued employees”.

The initiatives include the appointment of Ian Fryer as kiwifruit employment development manager to work with orchard owners, growers, contractors and iwi to develop full time employment options in the kiwifruit industry for employees and potential employees.

Zespri has said it expects kiwifruit industry employers to comply with all employment laws and regulations, and supports NZKGI in its work with MBIE to ensure industry compliance.

Another industry spokesperson, who did not want to be named, says the kiwifruit industry has made considerable improvements to employment standards over previous decades and those improvements are on-going.

Today Recognised Seasonal Employer workers, mainly from the Pacific, make up just 20 per cent of the workforce, with New Zealanders being the majority of employees.