Infometrics July newsletter
July 2018
NEWSLETTER
Our July forecasts have been released and are available via our website Portal. You can get a taste of the forecasts in our media release. If you are not subscribed to our forecasts and would like to be, please contact Shaun Twaddle.
Andrew Whiteford has contributed to our regular ‘Chart of the Month’ feature with a chart showing the opportunity posed by a young Māori workforce in Northland.
Brad Olsen examines how the lack of clarity around Fair Pay Agreements and the implications of declining union membership will change various aspects of the industrial relations scene.
Finally, Andrew Whiteford rounds off with an announcement of how the new census data will be incorporated into our Community Profiles.
Media Release: Provincial New Zealand dominates economic growth prospects
New Zealand’s provincial economies are poised to drive growth in the economy, building on the recovery in dairy prices during 2016, according to Infometrics latest economic forecasts. Spending activity in the regions is comfortably outpacing activity in the main centres, with commodity prices for most exports holding at high levels.
Chart of the month: Ethnic age profile in Northland
Replacing retiring baby boomers will cause headaches for Northland employers over the coming decade, but a large cohort of young Māori represent a key labour market opportunity.
Striking while the iron’s hot
Twenty-seven years after the Employment Contracts Act made union membership voluntary, the current coalition government has named Jim Bolger – the Prime Minister in 1991 – to head its Fair Pay Agreements working group. Fair Pay Agreements are meant to become the centrepiece of employment law policy, yet no one is quite sure yet what they are, or how they will alter employment relations. Among these changes, strike action by nurses, and union meetings, we thought we’d provide a primer on various aspects of the industrial relations scene.
Community profiles will be updated with new census data
Infometrics Community Profiles are a free resource which bring together a wide range of census data. We will be updating these profiles when the 2018 Census is made available next year.