Guest Author • Jul 14, 2021 •
Amy Zadow, University of South Australia What could be so bad about answering a few emails in the evening? Perhaps something urgent pops up, we are tidying up an issue from the day, or trying to get ahead for tomorrow. Always being online and available is one of the ways we demonstrate our work ethic and professionalism. But the … Read More
Guest Author • Feb 25, 2020 •
John MacCormick To succeed in an unpredictable and changing world, adaptability is the key. Let’s be chameleons. Technology continues to change people’s jobs and work environments. But change so far is not as fast and extensive as some pundits claim. Nor is it as fast and extensive as it needs to be if New Zealand is to realise the opportunities … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 21, 2019 •
John MacCormick You’d think that with low unemployment and ever-improving technology for distance education, the proportion of tertiary students studying part-time would be on the rise. But it’s not. There’s a puzzle here that may help to reveal some of the challenges our tertiary education system faces in meeting the skills needs of New Zealand’s workforce. The number of people … Read More
Michael Reddell • Nov 12, 2019 •
A passing comment in a post the other day about the labour force participation rates of older people prompted me to pull down the fuller data and see what we could see about various participation rates over the decades since the HLFS began in 1986. As it happens, the unemployment rate in 1986 averaged 4.2 per cent, exactly the … Read More
Guest Author • Oct 17, 2019 •
Judy Kavanagh Over the last 40 years, New Zealanders – and people in other countries – have experienced big changes in the jobs they do and where they live and work. These changes include: a decline in manufacturing jobs an increase in jobs in ‘information-intensive’ industries (which are better paid and require a tertiary qualification) increasing participation of women in … Read More
Guest Author • Jul 12, 2019 •
John MacCormick There’s an old joke about an economist searching for her keys under a street lamp. She lost them somewhere up the street in the dark, but it’s easier to look where the light’s shining.1 John MacCormick If that still has any amusement value, it’s because there’s still some truth in it. When searching for the keys to … Read More
Guest Author • Jul 11, 2019 •
Tim Maddock Why don’t people move as often as economists expect? Some regions in New Zealand have much higher rates of unemployment than others. These differences are persistent, with little change over the past thirty years. Why might this be? If workers seek higher pay (and unemployment is painful) then we would expect workers in struggling regions to … Read More
Dave Heatley • Jun 21, 2019 •
I only know one economist joke. A plane carrying economists plummets towards the ground after its engines fail. In a quiet cabin, an economist pipes up: “in my model the demand for parachutes just peaked, and the market will increase supply”. This caricature of economists — withdrawn, unemotional and overly trusting in simplistic models — has at least a grain … Read More
Guest Author • May 17, 2019 •
Predicting technology is the first step towards predicting the labour market impacts of technology. But history tells us that technology prediction is like a game of chance. Make enough predictions and you’re sure to get some right… and many wrong, sometimes spectacularly. The president of IBM, Thomas Watson, purportedly said in 1943 that “I think there is a world market … Read More
Dave Heatley • May 13, 2019 •
This graphic caught my eye. It accompanies the article Robots and Us in today’s Otago Daily Times. Things look pretty dire for accountants and auditors – 94% of jobs automated within five years. Time to start night classes and retrain. Becoming a software developer looks a safe bet – only 4% of jobs will be … Read More