How redundancy in New Zealand should be handled.
With wonderful timing, theres a really great blog on the Herald Website from employment lawyer Bridget Smith. She went to see the film Up In The Air with George Clooney – which funnily enough we also went to see the other day. Its about a guy who fires people for a living as a consultant, because the bosses are too cowardly to do it.
In it she highlights the important points you need to know about how the process should work here.
Which is different in every way to what happened to hubby last week oddly enough.
While there is no set process for a redundancy, the Employment Relations Act 2000 requires consultation with potentially affected employees about a proposal, before any final decisions are made.
In addition, the common law makes it clear that consultation is more than notification and the process must not be a sham.
Basically, the process under New Zealand law requires an employer to provide potentially affected employees with a memorandum which outlines what is proposed and why.
The employees should be provided with sufficient information in order to be able to provide feedback on the proposal, including possible alternatives and this feedback, including any possible alternatives, must be considered by the employer prior to any final decisions being made.
Hmmm – mustn’t be a sham.
A memorandum explaining what is proposed and why? Nope – didn’t get one of those.
Sufficient information provided? Nope – not yet.
So, New Zealand employees can breathe something of a sigh of relief. The chances of a Corporate Downsizing Expert (or Mr Clooney for that matter) beaming into your office, out of the blue, via video conference, and advising that you have been made redundant, are slim to none.
Not so slim it seems.
Certainly if your employer has any familiarity with employment law in New Zealand and wants to avoid litigation in the form of a personal grievance. Because the reality is, in that situation, even George Clooney would struggle to soften the blow.
I agree: the people in charge of these redundancies (and hubby hasn’t actually been told who was going to make the decision) should have spent a bit of time asking a lawyer what they needed to do instead of messing it up so badly. I cant help but hope they lose their jobs when the next lot of heads have to roll.
It seems management hasn’t quite figured out that if you get rid of all the staff that actually do teh work and make the money, they won’t need managers.
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IBM New Zealand redundancies – they are not rumours.
IBM New Zealand has refused to comment on rumours it is making 34 staff redundant in Wellington and merging its northern and southern region sales teams.
Spokeswoman Courtney Allen said IBM “continuously re-balances skills and capabilities to meet the changing needs of clients. While many of our competitors were contracting in response to the global financial crisis, we hired consistently throughout last year with over 80 appointments,” she said.
The leadership team was continually changing to meet the needs of clients and business, Ms Allen said. “This is business as usual for IBM.”
The subsidiary employs about 1000 staff. It last reported a reduced profit of $13.7 million on sales of $391.4m in 2008.
IBM’s United States parent this week cut nearly 1000 jobs from its worldwide work force of 400,000. The New Zealand subsidiary of its biggest global rival, Hewlett-Packard, this week reported a $8.9m loss and a 10.5 per cent drop in sales.
Dismissing the crap from the spokesman as absolute BS, which is what it is, I can confirm that IBM have made 30+ people redundant, with almost no notice and an appalling lack of anything approaching the legal standards for doing so.
Hubby is one of those people.
They were told on Wednesday (the same day believe it or not that we got confirmation of my brother’s residency), and were given till just Monday as a “consultation period”. Although there is no statutory legal minimum period that employers need to give for this “consultation” – 1 week is the standard that has been formed by case law. 3 days is unreasonable, and is grounds for seeking a Personal Grievance.
I cant say too much, as oddly enough, hubby is one of several people it seems who are doing just that. Its been a hatchet job: badly handled by people who really shouldn’t be allowed to keep their jobs, and basically its one almighty cock-up.
We understand that this has been done so quickly to keep the news out of the paper. So glad that didn’t work (and no – it was NOT me that told the Dom Post!)
And this isn’t business as usual for IBM. IBM New Zealand operates in a world of its own, and one that is frankly an embarrassment to the rest of IBM, if it was actually important enough for the rest of IBM to care what was going on down here. IBM as a company has always been clear that technical staff are not treated as lower class workers than management. If you are a technical specialist, which lets face it – IBM does kinda rely on – you can rise in the company as far as your skills will take you. Not so in New Zealand, where managers get easily offended at technical staff getting paid more then them, and and are not above lying through their back teeth to cover up their own lack of effort and skill.
THAT is what is “Business as usual” in IBM New Zealand. We have seen so many people shoved out in the last year or so because a manager didn’t like them: their “face doesn’t fit”. Hubby himself got a bad personal review last month for no other reason than a manager of his was upset over his high salary, and the fact the he wanted a pay rise.
All in all its a shambles. IBM NZ has been becoming more and more toxic as a workplace, and to be honest we knew it was only a matter for time before something like this happened.
Its things like this that mean so many people leave New Zealand. Working for people who just don’t know what they are doing can be very depressing. While there is a huge amount to come to New Zealand for, screwing up what was a brilliant career really wasn’t the plan, and should not be a cost of emigrating here.
So, now what do we do?
Well, not much really. We have an emergency fund which will cover 2 months worth of bills and living expenses, on top of another months pay and nearly 2 months pay in redundancy (at a reduced payment because IBM is not being exactly fair and honest about hubbies salary. Again.)
I cant stress enough the need to make sure you have these funds behind you, especially if you are taking high paid work in New Zealand. Tall Poppy Syndrome is a huge problem here, and if you are good at your job, and/or get paid a lot of money, there are some very short poppies here who will do their best to get rid of you.
We are far from the only ones that have been affected by this: its actually fairly standard. And certainly in high paid IT circles – it seems to be pretty much the only way to get a pay rise. So be prepared. Then if or when it happens, you have the distinct pleasure of being able to sit back and not in any way beg for a job from the people who just shat all over you.
Trust me – that is a nice feeling!
So, hubby has already started the process of having endless coffee meetings, phone calls and interviews. No point in waiting around! Oddly enough although IBM NZ claims it doesn’t need hubby any longer – they still expect him to work out his notice. Again, very different from IBM UK who have the sense to get disgruntled staff off the premises pronto.
And we wait for the lawyers to do their thing.
If you happen to be affected by this – we recommend an employment lawyer in Lower Hutt: Mike Gould at Gibson Sheat. He’s not cheap, but he’s good, and it really is worth every cent if like in this case your employer has not followed the expected process or has bullied you in any way. You are entitled to seek legal advice if you are being made redundant, and if anyone in management claims you are making a threat by saying you will be seeking legal advise, please make sure you tell your lawyer this. If you really cannot afford a private lawyer, don’t forget Citizens advice, who can offer you information for free.
BTW – while NZ staff were given three days “consultation”, UK Staff were given 90 days. Says it all about how New Zealand companies are run.
Mike Gould: Gibson Sheat:
04 569 4873
mike.gould@gibsonsheat.com
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What’s the effect of the global financial mess?
Having some spare time in the house with the slightly crappy weather, I’ve been watching some of the TED talks that have been sat on the iPod waiting patiently for me.
One in particular was from John Gerzema, talking about the ‘post crisis consumer‘. Beyond some of the academic/economic waffle, and the ‘America is the world perspective’ it did contain some interesting observations.
First off is the (US) savings rate over the last 70 odd years from 1935 to 2005 (sorry the graphics are a little fuzzy), giving us confirmation that it’s in the last few years that average households have negative savings – i.e. no savings and money oweing on credit, while since the 1950’s it’s been in the 5-10% band
The blip in the early 1940’s is of course the war. But only because there was nothing to buy, rather than a patriotic drive to save money into war bonds as there was in the UK. It is interesting though, even when there were almost no consumer goods to buy, savings rates only averaged 20-25%.
Anyhow, while these numbers are now four years old it begs the question – ‘What are people doing now?’. Well the (startling) observation is that people are paying off debt. Because they don’t want to be beholden to the banks as much anymore. Which is good news. And more people are using debit cards to access money in their bank accounts, rather than using credit cards and borrowing the money. Again good news.
Of course, neither the banks or the credit card companies are happy with this – since they don’t get to bleed us all dry with interest rates and charges. But still, they’re not hurting yet and it’s early days in the whole economic recovery thing.
More interesting was the information about how people are dealing with the stress. While it doesn’t say what the sample population was here (Wall St executives still in jobs, as opposed to homeless families in some Detroit ghetto), and the percentages are more than 100%, so people are obviously doing a number of things, it does make interesting reading;
5% of people are dealing with the stress by buying more stuff. This is taken as a good sign, as we’re getting more savvy about what we buy, and we aint’ buying any old crap the marketing people want us to buy.
Still, draw your own conclusions. Good news for Nintendo, where people are playing video games and exercising (Wii), possibly with their family. Really good news for ISP’s and TV broadcasters.
Should New Zealand have an emergency fund for Migrants?
Filed under: Cost of living, Getting to New Zealand, NZIS & Immigration issues
One of the two families in the news lately over losing jobs and having to go home, had now left New Zealand. Having paid $11,000 to a licensed “Immigration Advisor” (and I use the term loosely) – it seems they too had little money to get home, and had nowhere to stay. Hmm, I hope the Immigration Advisors Authority has read about this and looks into whether this advisor followed the code of conduct.
Everyone but the father has now been repatriated back to Germany – it sounds like the local List MP helped them out. (If Only our list MP had been so useful – he couldn’t have given a toss!)
There are also calls (unsurprisingly from opposition MP’s who need a political stick), to set up a fund to help Migrants in need. I can’t help but think this is just wrong on so many counts. For a start I am offended that an opposition MP who oversaw a catalogue of problems within NZIS and did sod all about it, now claims to have Migrants best interests at heart. The hypocrisy is nauseating.
The impact of the recession on temporary and permanent migrants occurred in a way not anticipated by us or them when they came here,” [Jim Anderton] said. “They came here on advice, so we can’t then blame them when things go wrong.”
The problem with this – while nice – is that what happens to the migrants that just don’t settle here and go home? Do they get their flights back paid for them as well? You see it’s not just the recession that forces people to go home. Given that net migration figures are always ridiculously low (there are however no figures on how many of the ones that leave are migrants as opposed to Kiwis) – if the New Zealand government helped out every migrant who –for whatever reason – had to leave it would simply be unaffordable.
And to be honest – I really do think we need to accept that there are no guarantees that it will work out for us here. We need to be prepared for the fact that we may need to leave, and it should be up to us to have the emergency fund to get ourselves home. Even if you have a Permanent Residency Visa, can you afford to stay here without a job? We had been here over 4 years and were citizens, when it was looking highly dubious that Hubby would get to keep his job. Added to that – it was looking very likely that the Family Residence Team in London would do everything in its power to ensure that my family did not join us. There were many days when we had to look at what we do if we had to go back. The cost to us would have been phenomenal. We did however have emergency funds to deal with loss of income, and we could have got flights home. Dealing with our properties however would have been horrendous.
There is simply no way of knowing till you move here and live here how you will settle, and there is always the risk that your job may not work out. You need to have funds to live on or get home and you need to have a plan. I also wonder how many people moving from the UK to New Zealand would be happy if the UK government did the same for it’s migrant population. I doubt it would be many.
Please ensure you fully understand the costs involved in emigrating to New Zealand, and if you sell a house in the UK – keep some of the money back to cover situations like this. It can happen to any of us, and it does not happen simply because we are in a recession – that just makes it more likely and more newsworthy.
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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.
IBM even refuses to let staff have “Charity Coffee” in Wellington.
It seems that the whole idiotic decision of IBM in New Zealand to take free coffee from it’s staff due to “hard economic 
times” is in danger of turning them into a laughing stock. The Dom Post today is reporting a truly hilarious story about a group called “Coffee Aid” who tried to take a charitable donation of free coffee into the main Wellington office – only to be turned away. Jeeze – you can’t make this stuff up!
Worse – an IBM “Spokeswoman” claims that IBM is rewarding staff where it matters most – with “salary reviews and bonus programmes.”
Bullshit.
The conversation goes like this:
“We have reviewed your salary this year. As a monkey could do your job, we have decided to drop your salary to that of an untrained one. We know that you personally can do a whole heap of tricks that most monkeys cant do, and that means we get of host of extras – nevertheless – it has been determined that as the untrained monkey could actually do the basics – that’s all you are worth. There’s an economic crisis on don’t you know. We have also reviewed your bonus situation this year. You are not getting one. There’s an economic crisis on don’t you know. And we no longer supply free peanuts. There’s a blah blah blah.”
IBM is denying staff the job benefits they are entitled to, and if anyone is getting a bloody pay rise – it is not the staff that are working their arses off making money for the company. IBM is rapidly demoralising staff, and instilling a climate of fear on the basis that they should be grateful to have a job at IBM, even of they have to be paid thousands of dollars less than they were promised.
And don’t get me started on how much money they have wasted over the whole “flights to Oz” debacle. Still no flight approval.
Poor IBM New Zealand– it really has ended up looking really stupid.
On a serious note though – if you are planning on emigrating to New Zealand on the basis of a job offer from IBM New Zealand (to be fair it probably applies to any company right now) – you need to be aware that any claims made about future salary increases, perks or bonus are all hot air unless you have it expressly and explicitly written down and signed by higher management. Salary indications should be taken with a bucket of salt, and be extremely careful if you are being offered a 2 year “fixed term hire” position. If you are coming on a work visa – it is vitally important right now that you transfer to a residency visa as soon as possible – even if it means changing jobs to do so – because there are plenty of people right now who are not having their work visas extended by NZIS.
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Something you need to read if you are worried about redundancy.
I’m not the only one who thinks it is a good idea to be smart and savvy with your finances now – and to take some control in case the threat of redundancy turns out to be real. Money Saving Expert has a step-by-step guide on how to get things in order in case the worst happens. It is not hugely dissimilar to things I have said in the past.
Money Saving Expert is one of my favourite Personal Finance sites, and although it can be a bit cluttered – it is jam packed full of useful information.
Step By Step Guide To Redundancy
Now this report is obviously geared towards the UK, so some of the legal information about rights and entitlements will not be relevant to people in New Zealand, but the bits about handling your finances refer to everyone.
If you are in the least bit concerned – act now. Even if you are not concerned – act now anyway.
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The Coffee and Cake Jobs Summit.
Following the lead of Govt. and all those industry captains, we decided to hold a jobs summit, to brainstorm some ideas for what we could personally do to save NZ jobs. We did get some free sandwiches and coffee, however the cake ran out. Still – mustn’t grumble.
So what did we (semi-seriously) come up with?
1/ I’m going to stop working unpaid over time.
By my reckoning I work about 15-20 hours per week extra, for which I cannot get paid. If I and one or two other colleagues do the same – IBM would have to employ another person to do the work they currently get for free.
Result +1 job. And thats just for me – if every company stopped stealing time from its workforce – it would have a fantastic effect.
2/I’m going to work at home more often.
Brainstorming will be done in my local café, helping support local employment.
Result, $$ into the local economy and small businesses
3/ Devise a mandatory education program for grammar and spelling.
First we’ll start with journalists, magazine article writers and so on. Then we’ll broaden the program to any public service staff in local and central Govt., and finally we’ll extend the program to anyone working for any company who in any way writes a letter, document, invoice or other communication that goes out to customers.
Result – Teachers required, plus less time wasted with poor communications.
Lots of money poured into local economies as the program comes to your local town, village, beach, café.
4/Suggest the AA champions compulsory practical re-testing for a driving license every five years. Too many people don’t understand the simplest concepts like “Put your bloody foot down when you want to overtake! You Idiot!”
This may have a positive knock on effect for public transport use.
Result - Employing more driving instructors for refresher courses, and more examiners for the practical course. Fewer accidents, hence improved productivity and less time off work due to accidents.
5/ Work with my local MP to devise a law covering Redundancy Tax (as he only wants to be troubled with the making of new laws).
Any company that makes employee’s redundant, because they are shifting to a less expensive offshore factory, call centre etc. will have to pay two years full salary to all employee’s made redundant. Any company still deciding to shift overseas will also be required to make senior management redundant by the same proportion as they get rid of staff. And because it’s redundancy, the senior managers can’t be replaced – unless it’s by an executive in the same country as the jobs have been moved to.
Result: Hopefully fewer jobs lost overseas, people in jobs continue to spend money in the economy.
6/ Government departments and the Armed Forces will be forced to award contracts to New Zealand companies if there is a company on shore that can provide the goods or services needed.
Result – no more egg on the face of the government when they launch a Jobs Summit to look at ways of safeguarding Kiwi Jobs the very same day that the Army cancels a contract with a local company from Levin because they get it cheaper in China. Let China deal with keeping their unemployment down.
7/ Avalon will continue to stay at home balancing our budget and will not enter the workforce.
Result – that’s one job we don’t take from someone else who needs it more than we do. (Although this may change if IBM continues to insist on me taking a $15,000 pay cut.)
8/To promote the Maori language, I’ll conduct all my telephone conversations with Telecom NZ in Maori (once I learn how to).
So, my calls will have to be handled by someone in NZ, who speaks the language, and can’t be handled by someone in Manila.
Result – bringing back the jobs that Telecom recently off shored. Adult education class in Maori language requiring more teachers.
9/ I’ll start a petition to have the snack bar on the Wairarapa trains actually open.
Three trains total, operating between 0530 & 2000 seven days a week should mean about six jobs.
Result 6 Extra Jobs for Wairarapa Locals. The cafe cart could even be run by one of the already local cafes in the area – boosting their profits as well.
10/ I’m going to more directly align my skills with the jobs I’m being asked to do.
For example, I shall stop using the self-check in counter at the airport, and use the proper check in desk. If we all do this, then AirNZ will have to employ more ground staff. I’ll also stop carrying my own bags on the plane, and insist on checking them into the hold. More baggage handling staff needed. There’s probably a lot of scope for this sort of thing with the banks too.
Result: More staff needed, rather than companies streamlining; saving money on wages and STILL charging us more each year.
11/ I shall conduct more business via traditional letters.
This will result in more stamps & envelopes being bought, more letters for NZ Post to collect, sort and deliver. Naturally this will align with the spelling education program.
Result – staff needed to post more letters. New Post offices can be set up providing new businesses for local areas.
12/ Start a Facebook Campaign for Gordon Ramsey to be flown to NZ.
We’ll give him a bike, and he can work his way along the proposed national cycle track, stopping at all cafés & restaurants on the way. He’ll be followed by a small army of cleaners, decorators, menu designers etc. who’ll work to improve substandard establishments.
Result – people from local areas can be employed to clean up the cafés and restaurants. Its not long term work, but it could help especially in Towns where companies like F&P have already laid people off because they moved to China already.
13/ Suggest that the Govt institutes a six monthly ‘customer satisfaction program’ in relation to MP’s and dealing with their constituents.
Everyone in the country will have the opportunity to provide feedback on their MP every six months, instead of every three years. The MP will have to provide service level reports to their party seniors and their constituents. Any MP found to be underperforming will be put on a performance improvement program. Bonuses will not be given for any underperforming MP’s.
Result: lots more central and constituency staff are needed to collate the results, write reports, presentations etc.
13/ Any company who has closed factories or offices within New Zealand to make the most of sweatshop labour abroad will automatically not be able to take up a moment of any MP’s time whinging about how tough things are and will be barred for life from any measures to help the economy.
Result: That will teach them not to do it again – if they survive. If they don’t – well – they weren’t exactly doing, much for local people anyway.
14/ Any company requiring staff to take a paycut, or take advantage of a 9 day fortnight for staff, must prove that it did not make a profit in the last quarter.
Result; Less whining from companies such as F&P about how difficult it all is while STILL pocketing $29 MILLION in PROFIT.
Are we going to have 11% unemployment in New Zealand?
Filed under: Future Finances, Jobs & Work, Life in New Zealand
Apparently the New Zealand Institute has prepared documents telling our Prime Minister that unemployment could rise to 11%. So – the question you need to ask is: what have they based this on??? “New research published in the United States last month on recessions originating in financial crises.”
So – not based on anything concrete about New Zealand then??? But I guess its comforting to know that the very brainy people in this “Think Tank” have arbitrarily decided that we have no choice but to follow the US on it’s downward spiral. Apparently they did “extrapolate” the figures to New Zealand. Well, that’s OK then!
I wonder if the very brainy people in the “Think Tank” understand the differences between a country with 4million people in it, and a country with 250 million in it?
Now – I’m not saying that New Zealand won’t have 11% unemployment. But for crying out loud – if we are going to have Think Tanks getting everyone in a panic – could it please be over something a bit more accurate than “Because the US has it”!
So – what is the story with Unemployment in New Zealand right now?
Well, according to Stats NZ – which is a really interesting place to get the real numbers from: Unemployment is up. It hit 4.6% by the end of 2008. This was an increase from a low of 3.7% in 2006 and 2007.
Now – the really interesting thing is that until 2004 – the unemployment rate didn’t drop to less that 4.5% anyway. So although it is not great sailing at the moment – it is not quite time to be throwing ourselves over the edge just yet. According to the yearly figures at Stats NZ – in 1995 – unemployment was 10.6% – so it is possible to reach those levels. But the figures also show that the past four years have been unusual in the low rate of unemployment, with figures steadily coming down over 15 years, and now its just going back up.
If you compare the current 4.6% with 3.7% – it looks a bit bad. But did you know what if you average out the unemployment percentages over the past 15 years – its 6.8%??? So maybe 4.6% isn’t actually that bad.
In fact – we discussed this earlier – as Hubby found a graph that makes the situation look dire:
And I said – that couldn’t be right – because it didn’t match the figures on Stats NZ. Here is a graph we made using the figures going back before the record low unemployment rates:
Doesn’t look half as bad now- does it?
It’s bad for the extra people that lose their jobs of course – but I really think its worth taking a moment to understand that a lot more people were unemployed in the 13 years up to 2005 than are unemployed now.
Don’t Panic.
Just because the papers tell you it’s all going to hell in a hand basket – it doesn’t actually mean that it is.
