Lots of jobs?
There is a flood (in NZ terms) of people looking for jobs because they have been made redundant. While the message appears to be that most companies are not advertising for staff, there are jobs consistently being advertised in all walks of life. It is certainly a lot less than ‘normal’ – however what is ‘normal’?
I have a theory on this. We’ve mentioned before the merry-go-round that appeared to be the NZ job market, with lots of jobs requiring specialist skills and few people with the required skills applying for them. My theory is that when lots of people are moving between employers, there are at least twice as many jobs being advertised as actually exist.
you may think.
But think about this – there is the job I’ve just taken which is still being advertised online because they’ve not cancelled the advert yet, and the job at my current employer I’m leaving because they want to find someone else to do the job I was doing. To anyone outside that change, you see two jobs advertised, however there is only one actual vacancy.
Plus there are other companies who advertise a job that may not entirely exist, they just want to snap up someone who is spare in case they aren’t available when the company actually has a sudden need for that sort of person in six months time. That I think is driven a bit by a perception of a shortage of people. Certainly I’ve heard of employers who, nine months ago, were having to offer jobs at the end of the interview. Otherwise by the time they decided to offer someone a job, they’ve already been snapped up by the company who was interviewing that person the same day.
With a lot fewer people moving, the apparent surplus of jobs evaporates. As does the perception that there isn’t enough people with the experience needed.
With the banks holding back on recruitment, and Govt. departments having to go through proper budget reviews to ‘trim’ their expenditure, and your existing employer thinking that they’ll be able to split your role between three (already over worked) colleagues, and hence get away with not replacing you when you leave, the net result is that there are certainly fewer jobs advertised.
Does the level of job adverts represent a more realistic measure of how many jobs are out there and available?
So in who’s interest is it to talk up any ‘flood’ of job seekers? Well any company that is still looking for staff. They can get away with offering lower salaries, since people are scared into accepting the first job which comes along, in case they don’t get another offer. I don’t doubt there are numerous people out there who are struggling to find a job. It took me over three months to get a new job offer when I was made redundant, and then two came along at the same time.
Now, I’m not saying I have an answer to this. It’s just a theory. Like with a lot of things, if we stop panicing and look at what the financial/share/job/grocery market is doing with a bit of perspective, things don’t look so bad.
Good luck to anyone out there looking for a job – there are loads. To misquote Dolf De Roos, the job deal of the decade comes along every week.
Why wait for redundancy
Filed under: Cost of living, General Budgeting, Hubby's Views, Jobs & Work
There was an article in the Sunday Star Times last weekend (Sunday 24th) that’s had me thinking for a few days. Written by a financial advisor, it covers 14 tips on how to cope financially with redundancy. Usefully this is split between things to do if you hear rumours, and things to do once given your redundancy notice.
Except most of those things would be prudent to do anyhow, irrespective of whether you hear rumours of redundancy in your workplace or not.
The advice from the financial expert in the paper is to wait until you get your redundancy notice, and then look at whether you can get cheaper electricity elsewhere, or change your mobile phone calling plan (or indeed decide whether you need a mobile at all).
With the exception of taking time out from job searching to clear your head, take advantage of all the free time you now have to do something you enjoy, and ensuring you’re getting all the Govt. benefits you’re entitled to, things like brushing up your CV and keeping in touch with people are activities I’d strongly recommend anyhow.
So, I don’t see why we should wait until we know we not going to have a job in four weeks time, to figure out that we should keep an eye on the household budget, and not spend money where we don’t need to.
Now I could be cynical and say that a lack of planning is what will drive people into the arms of a financial planner, who for a fee, will help them budget and take out suitable insurances. Again though, if you take out an income protection insurance policy now, when there are no rumours of redundancy, then if it happens to you in three months time – you’re covered. Taking out income protection is pretty useless when you know your job is about to go.
So protect yourself now, update your CV, keep in touch with friends in other companies, double check your budget, and take a look at your emergency fund. Avalon has mentioned this previously
In the words of a good book, “Don’t Panic”, just be prepared.
Why on earth is New Zealand in danger of getting a “Credit Downgrade”???
I just don’t get it. Now maybe it’s just cos I’m still a bit thick when it comes to economics and high level finance – but on the other hand – maybe it’s the system that needs a bloody great kick up the backside.
So what is the deal?
Well, there’s this agency called Standard and Poor’s. They research financial institutions and stocks, and then publish their findings. They also run Stock Exchange Indexes (you may see something called the S&P500) where you can invest in what they consider the top 500 shares. As far as the ratings are concerned – if S&P give a bank or investment a AAA rating then you are supposed to be able to invest with a large degree of confidence – whereas if they rate it a C then you need to worry.
It seems S&P also run Sovereign Ratings where they rate Government bodies, higher education, and housing sectors round the world. Right now they rate New Zealand as AAA and Stable for both Local Currency and Foreign Currency – which sounds good and healthy. However they have said that the outlook is Negative for New Zealand as a Foreign currency, and we are at AA only. This means we are not a good place to invest in from abroad all of a sudden.
Well – 
I say to that.
Standard and Poor have a bit of a cheek rating anything right now – on account of their ratings of hundreds of companies and investment products which turned out to be complete and utter rubbish. OK – so S&P dropped the ratings – but only after everyone had lost everything – by which time even a monkey could have said the investment was a bit dodgy. But S&P by giving these investments (and that included the CDO’s behind the Sub Prime mess that started this recession) gave them a respectability that they should not have had. People trusted them – and lost everything.
Standard & Paws - we noze what we is doin, right?
So how on earth do these people get to say that New Zealand should be downgraded??? For crying out loud – we are doing so much better than other countries during the recession.
Apparently – they will reserve their final decision until after the budget on Thursday. I am so glad they are taking the time to consider their verdict on us!
If anyone is interested – despite the total cock-up of the UK financial services – and a budget that involves the UK government borrowing more money in the next year than has been borrowed in the history of the UK Parliament – they still get a rating of AAA (Negative) – for home and foreign currency. What a bloody joke! Lets be clear on this – the UK government has taken over nearly all the banks – and is about to bankrupt the next 10 generations of Brits and yet they are still rated AAA. We are a small blip on the bottom of the world – not one of our major banks is about to go under, and are in fact still making revoltingly big profits. And while it is likely that our Government will borrow an awful lot of money to get us through the recession – it is not likely to be the gobsmackingly stupid sums that Gordon Brown is grabbing.
Why on earth are these bozos even thinking of downgrading us??? Why is anyone giving these bozos the time of day??? They have proved they are pretty bloody hopeless.
And if I wasn’t offended enough – if these people in their “wisdom” decide to downgrade us – then apparently our mortgages will go up. So while the UK goes to hell in a handbag and mortgages are at almost 0% already – we are doing reasonably well, already paying 6% on our mortgages and these twits are going to be responsible for us paying even more.
I need a drink!
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12 days and counting.
In 12 short days, the rest of my family arrives in New Zealand for what we sincerely hope is the final time. My Parents already have their permanent residency, and we will be sponsoring my brother as soon as he has a suitable job offer. (Let the fun begin).
In the meantime – I am running around like a blue arsed fly trying to make sure the house is suitable for 5 slightly-crazy adults, and they are packing up their UK lives for the last time and saying their goodbyes. I’ve got electricians and
builders still to come in and do a few bits: thankfully the heatpump is installed and our house is cosy and warm ready for their first blast of a New Zealand winter. They have clients to deal with (some of whom have just figured out that this is really happening and this time they won’t be coming back), and getting ready for the shippers.
At this point I am truly grateful to have a slightly oddball family: they sold their UK home 4 years ago, put a chunk of the money into the house over here in New Zealand, bought a static Caravan to live in in the UK and spent the UK summer in that and the NZ summer over in the house. Which means that as soon as the residency was approved – they were able to move without having to sell a UK home in a ghastly market.
It takes something of a special constitution for them to have believed in us so much that they would take that risk believing that we could make a successful life over here.
While we were working through Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich book, we came across a part of it which talks about burning your bridges behind you so that you cannot go back. This was one of those things: not allowing for the possibility of failure. When we emigrated – we sold our UK home rather than keep it and rent it out. Given that we then became property investors – the question has been asked: why on earth did we do that??? But I know that it would have been a lot easier for me to give up and go back home on the tough days of homesickness if we had not sold the house. Burning that bridge meant we had to succeed, and I had to work through the homesickness.
For us, emigrating to New Zealand was always about the whole family doing it. It can be an incredibly hard thing to achieve – but it is so worth it!
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The face of the “recession”: check how much you are spending!
Filed under: Cost of living, General Budgeting, Property Investing
This is not the first “riches to rags” story that has been printed in the papers this year so far – and it won’t be the last; about a couple are stars today after trying to sell everything they splurged on over the years so they can pay their mortgage and bills.
The successful plumber has come unstuck, not because his business is struggling, but because other business are and didn’t pay him the money they owed him. He is apparently owed $95,000 – and not many of us can cope with a $95k paycut! (We only manage with our $28k because we never actually had the money in the first place – not that this in anyway lets IBM off the hook in my opinion.)
So they are taking everything that they spent all their money on without thinking about it – and are now selling it for a helluva lot less on Trade me. Now I’m all for getting rid of stuff you don’t really need on Trade Me to make a few extra bucks – but please – get things under control before you HAVE do this. Its one thing to sell a load of stuff because you are emigrating and it will save on shipping (and it acts as a clear out of your old life), but to be in a position where you need to use trade me so that you can put food on the table is not somewhere you want to end up.
Even the childrens toys are being sold (though I have to say I feel more sympathy for them being called Porche and Jag – don’t get me wrong I love Jags but it’s just not fair to name your kids after cars!).
One of the really telling comments is that the wife, who is having to sell a lot of her clothes and shoes, says: “”I certainly don’t go shopping any more. I used to go shopping and do lots of it. I hadn’t looked at the bank account for years and I said, [to Regan] `Oh my God, why didn’t you tell me to stop shopping?”‘
This was exactly the same reaction we both had when we realised we had been overspending and ended up with no money. In some ways I guess we are lucky that we figured it out before a recession hit, so we are used to doing all the cutting back and not spending on stuff we don’t need. I’m also glad that we had learned this lesson before we went in to property investment – because the lessons we have learned have meant that we are still comfortable even with values dropping and rents not being as high as we would like. I may not have a closet full of shoes, but I can go and splurge on a pair now and then knowing that I wont be having to sell them in a few month for a lot less.
One of the really unfortunate things in this story is that this couple asked their bank for a $100,000 loan to help tide them over and the bank refused. Now obviously we can’t know why the bank did that, but isn’t this the whole point of the bank guarantee system and all the work the government is doing to keep money moving??? And given that this week Westpac did advance an overdraft to a couple in a similar situation who were obviously not a good risk – I do feel a bit sorry for these people.
Hopefully these stories will start making people generally more away of their spending habits – and hopefully more people will start looking at what they spend their money on.
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Why our electricity bills are so high in New Zealand.
It’s all relative – these bills being substantially cheaper than a UK electricity bill – but hey – it still hurts. It seems though that the electricity generation companies in New Zealand (owned by the State) have been overcharging for several years to the tune of an eye-watering $4.4Bn. That’s $4,400,000,000. 440 times the amount of money “stolen” from Westpac by the now infamous Rotorua Petrol Station owners.
One major difference is that the petrol station runaways are being hunted down by Interpol and Westpac is after the money back – whereas the Electricity generators look like they are going to get away scot free with fleecing the New Zealand public.
Basically what has happened is that when there has been a “dry Year” or drought conditions – the generators have put up their “spot prices” for electricity. This is the amount of money that the retail electricity companies pay to the generators (and pass the cost on to us plebs). The prices have then stayed high when conditions get better.
The electricity companies are swearing blind that this is not happening – but hey – would you believe them???
Either way –I think they should pay us back the extra and stop charging such hideous rates. Especially as they all State Owned Companies – they shouldn’t actually be making huge profits anyway – its not as if they are actually using the money to improve services to most of their customers. Besides – dont they know theres a financial crisis on??? And yet the prices are still going up!
Rant for the day over.
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The sheer unadulterated daftness surrounding swine flu.
Filed under: For the numpties amongst us, Getting to New Zealand, Life in New Zealand
Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know that we are all about to die from Swine Flu???
Well, if anyone still thinks this is a real deadly threat – try flying anywhere and you will see just what an over reaction is taking place.
On our flight to Sydney – we had to fill in a completely pointless questionnaire about whether we have sneezed in the past 10 days. We get off the flight – and while waiting for the incredibly slow customs officer – we found that one of the guys that was on the flight is being given a facemask and being taken to see the men in lab coats.
Why is this ridiculously daft??? This guy has just spent 3 hours sitting in a tin can with over 100 people and recirculated air. If he had flu – never mind swine flu – he has just given it to all of us. And yet the health check takes place AFTER we are infected!
We had exactly the same situation on the way back. This time the questionnaire wasn’t even about whether we had been ill – just about where we were going to be for 30 days after we landed. We had a “you can’t make this stuff up” moment when the guy sat behind us announced to the world at large that his wife had been taken ill the week before. The cabin crew told him it would probably be ok. Again – we have been sat near these people for the past three hours with the air giving us a first class view of possible swine flu germs. Cheers mate! If either of you had swine flu – telling us all 15 minutes before we land is a bit pointless.
Which all begs the question: if this was really a high risk disease – why on earth are they not checking people out BEFORE they get on the plane???
For the conspiracy theorists out there – someone wrote a letter to the paper 2 weeks ago pointing out that stocks of Tamiflu which were rushed out for the last major scare mongering that was Bird Flu, were about to reach their sell by date. Stocks of Tamiflu have been flying off the shelves recently. Hmmm?
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Westpac’s spectacular cock-up.
I think this is a case of Karma biting a bank in the arse. Westpac having pedantically said they can’t treat me as a person because it might be a security risk has this week come clean about a case of human error at the bank which has made them look entirely stupid.
It seems that a couple who owned a New Zealand petrol station were about to be put into liquidation and applied for a $10,000 overdraft to help see them through a tough period. The bank approved the loan. So far so good.
Except when the loan was actually made live – someone accidentally added a few extra zeros, and the couple ended up with a $10,000,000 overdraft instead.
Classic.
Unfortunately for the bank, the couple then did a runner with an unspecified proportion of the money and left New Zealand – meaning the bank now has to try and get its money back. Shame.
I would have some sympathy – except it’s Westpac – and I’m fed up with banks harping on about how I cant do this, that and the other because of security (usually spending my own money) and yet they don’t seem to understand that half the time the problem is their system are inadequate.
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Expenses vs Allowances – how it works in New Zealand.
Have you been hearing the could-take-down-the-government debacle over MP’s expense claims back in the UK?
Now – as this is not a blog on politics (other than when it concerns NZ immigration) – I don’t really want to get into a discussion on the rights or wrongs (not that there appears to be a great deal of “right” in the situation anyway). However – something has occurred to me that migrants coming to New Zealand might need to bear in mind: you too could get “allowances” at work that you can spend as you see fit!
Much of the justification for the outrageous spending (the best I’ve heard is the male MP buying tampons) is that it is within the rules – and it is actually an Allowance they get – not expenses claims they are making. There is a huge difference and it is one that you may well come across here.
Hubby was supposed to get a “Car Allowance” when he became a permanent employee. At $15,000 it was not to be sneezed at, and would have meant we could replace the car. Now –he didn’t get it because IBM screwed him over. Had he got it, there was absolutely no requirement to spend it on a car. The same with an allowance for life insurance and medical insurance contributions. You can spend it on what you like. Hubby’s allowances should have totalled $28,000 if IBM had honoured their obligations.
Now that is different from expenses – which hubby has to pay for on either a corporate credit card, or personal credit card, and then claim back from the company. These he has to provide receipts for and be able to justify as a legitimate business expense. He would not for example to able to pass off my hairdresser bills on expenses – but there’s nowt to stop us using the car allowance to cover that. Our trip to Sydney is a good example of needing to be scrupulously honest in dealing with expenses claims. Hubby gets his bills paid for by IBM, but my costs come out of our own pocket. IBM cannot be expected to pay my share of the trip, so extra food, going out, shopping, my flight – that isn’t an expense claim, but the hotel room is as hubby would have to stay there to do the job and pays the same whether there are one or two people in it.
The reason you may find you get allowances is because of the Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that companies pay on job perks. If they give you a car – they pay tax at 33% on the value of it. If they give you money instead, you are the one that pays tax on it – because it becomes part of your salary.
Back to the UK situation – if you have iTunes you may want to listen to these very interesting interviews on the subject:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=54977512&id=73330187
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=54958645&id=73330187
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=54891410&id=73330187
Also, for sheer English humour and stunning history – take a look at this. [Edited 22/12/2009, sorry, broken link and we can't find the material again]
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Mussorgsky at the Sydney Opera House.
Filed under: Cost of living, Life in New Zealand, Things to do
One of the highlights of our stay in Sydney (other than the gorgeous pair of Purple Satin heels I managed to buy because they have Nine West stores here) was going to see the Russian Tribute, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. (Apparently that means something to people who go to these things regularly – but as I’m a philistine it was a bit lost on me I’m afraid.).
Mussorgsky: Before my morning Vodka I may as well be French!
We decided to go because as well as playing some Shostakovich (of which I’m not really a fan) they were going to be playing Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. This is one of the loud, in-your-face pieces that my Dad listens to – with the stereo cranked up for the big bit at the end with bells – so I just happen to quite love it. Dad seems to have a taste for classical music with bells and canons. In me this translated to a love of loud rock and goth with the odd need for bells and canons as well.
The Shostakovich bored me to tears – but Pictures at an Exhibition was really something. And this conductor was hilarious to watch. As you only see him from the back most of the time – I had the distinct impression that he was actually the Little Judge from Boston Legal that goes on about “jibber jabber” all the time. He’s a tiny man – and literally seems to jump around on his little platform – it was great to watch.
We got great seats – thanks to the girl on the box office – who was really helpful in explaining the layout of the hall, and where to get the best views from. It really is a stunning venue, and the sound is as impressive as you would expect. In fact the real shock was that on paper it looked like we were miles from the stage, when in fact we were remarkably close.
This was one of the things we didn’t mind paying for – at $108 each we both felt it was well worth the money to get to experience such an iconic Sydney event, and as they were playing music that I actually really love – it was too good an opportunity to miss. If anyone happens to be in Sydney on the 6th June – there is an Bell Ringing event taking place at the opera house to mark the re-release of Mike Oldfields Tubular Bells. We will miss that, as we will be getting ready to welcome the family back to New Zealand.
Which is where we are heading off back to in a few hours. It is nice to visit other cities – but I have to say I will be very glad to get back home to NZ.
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