Employment dispute in Christchurch where a business faced consequences for dismissing an employee before their start date, resulting in an $18.5K payout.
I’m sure most of you are aware of the unemployment rate within New Zealand and how we are at a record low. Stats NZ and Trading Economics explains that the current 3.4 % figure is predicted to reduce even further in 2022 and 2023, see below.
New Zealand's unemployment rate decreased to an all-time low of 3.4 percent in the third quarter of 2021, matching Q4 2007, when it was also 3.4 percent, and below market expectations of 3.9 percent. The fall in the unemployment rate is in line with reports of difficulty finding workers and high labour turnover, and continued travel restrictions on international arrivals, which put pressure on domestic labour supply, work and wellbeing statistics senior manager Becky Collett said. The number of unemployed people fell by 18,000 to 98,000, while employment went up by 54,000. The employment rate increased 1.2 percentage points to 68.8 percent, and the labour force participation rate edged up to 71.2 percent from 70.5 percent.
The unemployment rate is expected to trend around the 3.4 – 3.20 percent mark in 2022 and 2023.
The “under-utilisation” rate also fell from 10.5% in June to 9.2%. Underutilisation measures unemployment along with the proportion of people in work but who would like more hours, and those wanting jobs but who are either unavailable or not actively seeking work.
According to Stats NZ, this also matched the record low figure in 2007.
So, why is this important?
This has and will continue to impact business’s ability to recruit and retain key people. With the continued Covid-19 travel restrictions on international arrivals this has led to a candidate market. Many employers and recruitment companies are having to think outside the box in relation their recruitment process; listing a job on seek or trade me are not cutting the mustard anymore. Additionally, more importance is placed on candidate management and acting swiftly throughout the process, we are seeing many candidates withdrawing their applications because they have been involved in another process and a more attractive/lucrative offer has been made.
Here at EQ, we are not exempt from this. We have placed more importance on the way we advertise and the means and lengths at which we advertise. If you are struggling to find any people for your vacancies or seeing more turnover than usual, please get in touch with one of the team.
Information and statsics sourced from https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/unemployment-rate