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Media statements
EQC staff numbers and rates
8 September 2011
EQC has released information on how much it has spent on its staff since the first Canterbury earthquake struck in September 2010.
The figures show that a total of $137,985,883. has been paid out in wages to all EQC staff between 1 September 2010 and 30 June, 2011. These figures represent a range of rates from $17 per hour to $120 per hour for senior staff with responsibility for large teams.
EQC is releasing these figures because of recent public interest in in the way it recruits and remunerates its staff.
Chief Executive, Ian Simpson says that the scale of the Canterbury earthquakes clearly justifies the numbers of staff employed and the amounts they are paid.
“We went from a core staff of 22 before the 4 September quake to a total staff of well over a thousand in February. Many of these people are living and working in Canterbury.
Our aim has, from the beginning, been to give our claimants certainty around their situation as soon as possible. We needed to grow the team as quickly as possible to achieve this.
The salaries put in place were for the September earthquake with the expectation that people would be employed for six months with assessments due to finish in March. The February earthquake changed the landscape completely for EQC meaning a few people continued to be employed for a much longer period.”
Mr Simpson says that if EQC cannot retain qualified, experienced assessors, it has to train new people, which is costly and time-consuming.
EQC has completed 144,091 full assessments since 4 September 2010 and has paid out more than $1.5B in claims.
Its role has changed enormously since the September 4 2010 earthquake. Before this time, EQC assessed and settled claims and only managed repairs in certain circumstances e.g. land damage to a row of residential properties.
Since the September 2010 earthquake EQC has been given additional responsibilities which have required a large injection of staff for the following tasks:
- Within six weeks of the February 22 earthquake EQC completed rapid assessments on 182,838 properties. We did this to get a quick overview of structural damage, to identify vulnerable households and assist people needing temporary accommodation.
- We have, with our agents Fletcher EQR, project managed a significant proportion of the residential repair and rebuild of Canterbury.
- We have provided key engineering advice to the Government and CERA.
- We took responsibility for the Chimney Replacement Programme and the Winter Heat Programme initially managed by EECA.
On 1 September 2010, EQC had 22 core staff and 27 assessors in reserve. Staff numbers increased to 1,064 in February and by 11 July the staff numbers sat at 1,275.
“As soon as the 4 September quake struck we had to activate our emergency plan. This included the immediate use of our pool of qualified and experienced assessors. At the same time we had to establish a call centre and rapidly increase the numbers of claims administrators, valuers, engineering and support staff needed to support our claimants,” Mr Simpson says.
On average, assessors get $75 an hour and estimators are paid $60 an hour.
“EQC is matching the market with the rates it is paying. It needs to attract and keep people from all around New Zealand. Market commentators have said the EQC rates are about right to do that.”
EQC assessors work 10-hour days/6 days a week on three weeks on, one week off basis. They are only paid for the time they are working, not for the one week in four they are not working.
They have no job security as there is no guarantee that they will retain their positions at the completion of a rotation. As private contractors, assessors take care of their own tax and ACC commitments. They receive no holiday pay or other entitlements that salaried staff receive.
Mr Simpson says that those who have been paid higher rates have responsibility for supervising large teams of between 100 and 800 people.
“As EQC still has months of work in front of it we are now looking at how it remunerates staff on a fixed term, rather than a contract basis.
Given the extent of the challenge we faced in the last year I feel the number of staff we have employed and the amount we have paid them is fully justified,” Mr Simpson said.
ENDS
For more information contact:
• Pamela Fleming 029 978 6430 or 0275545635
• EQC website: www.eqc.govt.nz
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/earthquakecommission
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/eqcnz