"I can only see the construction and building skill shortage getting tighter. It is a major issue we have to consider."
Workers being brought to the region would face higher accommodation costs, and not only in Queenstown and Central Otago, he said.
House prices were up significantly throughout the region. QV figures released this week reported Queenstown Lakes posted one of the largest year-on-year increases in home values in the country. But other parts of the region also posted higher values.
Dunedin had so far seen no evidence of slowing home values because of the new loan-to-value restrictions. Values continued to increase and sales activity had remained strong through the Christmas period.
QV spokeswoman Andrea Rush said it was probably due to the Dunedin housing market offering a much lower entry level and price point than other main centres. It was easier for investors to find the 40% deposit to buy in Dunedin and investors had remained active in the city.
Mr McGowan said a Dunedin real estate representative had told him this week new listings in Dunedin often received multiple offers, with up to 15 people interested in buying the same property.
"The number of people wanting to move to Dunedin for work is pushing prices up for both houses and rentals."
With the amount of construction work planned for Dunedin this year, the skilled worker shortage was likely to become acute, he said.
The Bodeker Scientific research centre being established in Alexandra would be "fantastic" for the region but would increase pressure on both the housing and rental markets.
Mr McGowan, who was in Te Anau on holiday, said people could not get a building job started in the town for at least 12 months and up to 35 new houses were in the process of being built. The affordability of sections in the town meant one land agent sold more than 30 sections in the last six months of last year.
Asked if construction was the only industry likely to suffer from skills shortages, Mr McGowan said service industries, particularly food and beverage services, were struggling to find workers.
Workers in Queenstown were paying high rents for shared accommodation, making it difficult to live and work in the resort.
And the increasing number of tourists visiting the region as a whole was putting pressure on infrastructure, adversely affecting their experiences, he said.
He was concerned one of the trends emerging from a shortage of accommodation might mean a return to "quantity over quality" and problems such as leaky homes.
"Building too fast is no solution if it causes problems for the future."
The ANZ Job Ads data showed the three largest cities, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, continued to be outdone by the regions in job advertisement growth. Nine of the 11 less-urbanised regions, which include Otago, recorded annual job advertisement growth stronger than Auckland’s.
The total index, which now measures only online job advertisements, rose 1.6% in December to be 18.8% higher than a year ago. It is the strongest annual growth since late 2011.
Job advertisements had now risen for 16 months in a row, seasonally adjusted.ANZ chief economist Cameron Bagrie said such a string of increases flagged strong demand for labour.
"Job ads growth is strong around most of the country, but noticeably stronger in the regions.
"Such demand signals the constraint in most regions is not whether there are opportunities but whether the labour is available to take advantage of them."
The New Zealand economy was growing strongly and firms clearly had the confidence to seek staff around the country. Despite record-high net migration, labour shortages existed. When there was a shortage, the price invariably went up.
Both Messrs McGowan and Bagrie expected stronger wage growth to be a feature of 2017.
Gisborne topped the ANZ annual job growth table with 51.3% growth, followed by Hawke’s Bay on 39.1%.
Otago had 31.3% growth and Southland improved markedly from November on 17.8% growth.
Auckland had 19.3% growth, Wellington 15.2% and Christchurch 1.9%.
In Australia, the number of job vacancies rose 2.2% in the three months to November.
Employers were seeking to fill 182,000 positions during the quarter, according to seasonally adjusted figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Private sector vacancies rose 2.5% and public sector vacancies 0.2%. Vacancies were up or 8.9% in the year to November.
