These trends are expected to remain in the next three to five years. The food, drink and tobacco wholesaling industry includes the wholesaling of meat, poultry and small goods, dairy produce, fish, fruit and vegetables, confectionery and soft drinks, liquor, tobacco, and groceries. It is ranked 21st in Wellington in terms of numbers of people employed. It is very difficult to ascertain overall patterns in employment opportunities across this industry, as each food group seems to be experiencing different patterns and they seem to be affected by different factors specific to their specialist industry. Some report moderate increases in the number of people employed, and others report a decline.
Future growth is also unpredictable for the same reasons.
However, there are some common factors affecting employment opportunities, which include the introduction of parallel importing, high levels of competition between businesses, rationalisation of companies, and competition for the discretionary dollar. Staff turnover in this industry is moderate to low and this pattern is expected to remain the same in the next five years. The majority of staff in this industry work full-time. However, there are some reports that greater casualisation and use of part-timers, could become more prevalent in this industry in the next five years. This is a male dominated industry, and this pattern is expected to remain the same in future.