Timaru District’s farms, processors and port connect work across several settlements. ChatGPT training can use a sample dispatch table to prepare a customer update while leaving product and freight facts for staff to check.3,15,17
Out of every 100 working people in Timaru District, 54 are in office, management or sales roles.
New Zealand: 64 in office, management or sales roles, 9 people-facing, 27 hands-on, out of every 100.
4 findings from Stats NZ data for Timaru District, and what each means for ChatGPT training.
On-site sessions, at your workplace, usually suit teams here better than remote ones. We come to you.
14 out of 100
Mainly worked from home, census day 2023
New Zealand 17.7%
87 out of 100
Households with internet access
New Zealand 90.5%
53.7% of employed residents in Timaru District work in desk-based roles, against 63.6% across New Zealand. The difference is mostly labourers: 15.2% of employed residents here, against 9.0% nationally. Most people here work with their hands, so ChatGPT helps most with the jobs around the job: quotes, replies to customers, rosters and the paperwork owners do at night.
| Per 100 workers | Chart | Timaru District | NZ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Managers | 17 | 18 | |
| Professionals | 19 | 27 | |
| Technicians and trades workers | 14 | 13 | |
| Community and personal service workers | 9 | 9 | |
| Clerical and administrative workers | 10 | 11 | |
| Sales workers | 8 | 8 | |
| Machinery operators and drivers | 8 | 6 | |
| Labourers | 15 | 9 |
Out of every 100 jobs in Timaru District, 18 are in manufacturing (9 nationally). We shape examples around the work that is actually here.
| Industry | Chart | Timaru District | NZ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing | 18.4% | 9.4% | |
| Health and social care | 12.5% | 12.0% | |
| Retail | 9.9% | 9.3% | |
| Construction | 8.6% | 8.2% | |
| Farming, forestry, fishing | 8.5% | 4.8% | |
| Education | 7.8% | 8.5% |
Growth of 6.1% in five years, against 9.6% growth nationally. Power, gas, water, waste added the most jobs (+208). Manufacturing lost the most (−667). New businesses are often setting up their systems from scratch, which is a good moment to build AI into them.
| Industry | Chart | 2020 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power, gas, water, waste | 219 | 427 | +208 | |
| Education | 1,687 | 1,862 | +175 | |
| Other services | 660 | 750 | +90 | |
| Manufacturing | 5,079 | 4,412 | −667 | |
| Farming, forestry, fishing | 2,206 | 2,047 | −159 | |
| Wholesale | 963 | 839 | −124 |
Each town has its own page and brief. Largest first.
| Town | Residents | Desk-based | Chart | Business locations | Since 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Timaru | 28,100 | 52.3% | 3,294 | +8.0% | |
| Temuka | 4,590 | 43.6% | 252 | +0.0% | |
| Geraldine | 3,020 | 53.2% | 264 | −8.3% | |
| Pleasant Point | 1,430 | 52.4% | 132 | +7.3% | |
| New Zealand | 4,993,923 | 63.6% | 654,435 | +9.6% |
A district exercise should identify whether a record comes from Geraldine, a dairy site or the Timaru port. Place labels in a practice table help prevent a tidy summary from concealing a wrong origin.3,15,17
Use fictional fruit-batch data to spot missing fields before drafting questions for a Geraldine production team.15
Draft a shipment status message from a synthetic PrimePort handover and ask the freight owner to confirm dates and cargo details.17
Participants can follow a mock district product through a packing record and port note, checking what each source actually establishes.15,17
No public ChatGPT days are booked in Canterbury right now. If you are a sole trader or a small team, register interest and we will let you know when one is planned. Want your whole team trained? Enquire any time.
We will email you when a public workshop is scheduled nearby. No other mailing.
Its documented factory is in Geraldine, within Timaru District, so a town-only example should be labelled differently.3,15
A made-up delivery sheet is suitable for finding blanks, with the farm or processor checking the resulting questions.3
The shipment owner should compare the draft with the current PrimePort or carrier record before sending it.17
Independent training by TheColab. Not affiliated with OpenAI.
Tell us about your team in Timaru District. We reply by email with a suggested course and format.
Local research checked 29 September 2026. Population and business figures come from Stats NZ.
