Latest / Best of Business / Carolyn Young: Retail NZ Chief Executive on the growing number of retailers calling for an end to Easter trading hours

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Carolyn Young: Retail NZ Chief Executive on the growing number of retailers calling for an end to Easter trading hours · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: Retailers are saying that limited Easter trading hours are bringing
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  Speaker 2: extra financial burdens for businesses. The Retail Radar survey from
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  Speaker 2: Retail New Zealand shows they want the ability to decide
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  Speaker 2: whether or not businesses can be open on restricted trading
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  Speaker 2: days Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The law says local
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  Speaker 2: council have the final say on when businesses are allowed
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  Speaker 2: to open. Chief Executive of Retail New Zealand, Carolyn Young
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  Speaker 2: is with me now. Good morning Morena and happy esther
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  Speaker 2: and to you too. Are these laws outdated?
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  Speaker 3: Carolyn? Look, we do think they are. In twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 3: when these laws were established, we didn't have the Internet.
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  Speaker 3: People went shopping twenty four to seven online at any
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  Speaker 3: day that they wanted the year, and families work in
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  Speaker 3: different ways and shoppings available in different ways. In nineteen
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  Speaker 3: ninety we only just started shopping on Saturdays.
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  Speaker 2: You make a very good point. Consumers can shop online
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  Speaker 2: at any time, so what purpose do these restrictions really serve?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they are old restrictions, aren't they. And what happens
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  Speaker 3: is that each local authority or counselors would refer them
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  Speaker 3: to them. Normally, they determine and set whether or not
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  Speaker 3: a store can open in their area, and that means
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  Speaker 3: that from region to region it can be quite different
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  Speaker 3: on a good Friday and Easter Sunday. And I guess
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  Speaker 3: there's a couple of things about it. One is that
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  Speaker 3: people often say, well, you know, what about family time
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  Speaker 3: and what about workers having a day off? And workers
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  Speaker 3: have the right to say I don't want to work
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  Speaker 3: on each Sunday and their employer can't make them do that.
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  Speaker 3: We fully support that right for workers to have that,
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  Speaker 3: But what we do say in times like now, there's
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  Speaker 3: a lot of young people that we can retail, and
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  Speaker 3: lots of people that don't earn big sums of money,
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  Speaker 3: and many people might be quite to earn time and
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  Speaker 3: a half and have a day and low so that
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  Speaker 3: they could take the day off at a time when
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  Speaker 3: it suits them and their family. You know, one dad
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  Speaker 3: and two kids at home is not the family that
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  Speaker 3: we had thirty five years ago. Not everybody has that
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  Speaker 3: sort of environment, and it might be that having a
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  Speaker 3: day off to go to one of your children's recitals,
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  Speaker 3: or to a sports event, or just taking time out
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  Speaker 3: for yourself might be the better way to fulfill the
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  Speaker 3: family needs rather than necessarily everyone's spending the day at
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  Speaker 3: home on Easter Sunday. That doesn't necessarily mean that everyone's
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  Speaker 3: going to spend time together.
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  Speaker 2: Carolyn, do you know how many retailers want to be
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  Speaker 2: open on days like Good Friday andys to Sunday?
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  Speaker 3: Well strict two thirds of the people that aren'ts that
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  Speaker 3: are survey indicating that they would like the choice. And
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  Speaker 3: so I think the thing about that is that we
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  Speaker 3: know that not every store in every area is interested
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  Speaker 3: in opening. And as sampole I grew up in Masterton,
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  Speaker 3: now the stores in massive and highly likely wouldn't open
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  Speaker 3: on Easter Sunday. But fifteen twenty k's down the road
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  Speaker 3: in Greytown, the stores would probably open because Greytown is
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  Speaker 3: a destination that people drive to, they'll take the weekend away,
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  Speaker 3: they'll go and spend time there, and it's a place
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  Speaker 3: that would have a thriving hub where people would want
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  Speaker 3: to go to. So it's the horses for Courses scenario,
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  Speaker 3: and it's one of those things where not everybody has
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  Speaker 3: to open. But retailers want the choice to be able
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  Speaker 3: to open and instead of having just online shopping, they
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  Speaker 3: want the choice where people can come into their store.
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  Speaker 2: Is it a huge amount of work for a council
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  Speaker 2: to survey it's businesses to work this out. Do you
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  Speaker 2: think to get a feel for what the community wants?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I don't know that they get a feel for
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  Speaker 3: what the community wants. I think they just make a
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  Speaker 3: decision on what they think. So what we know is
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  Speaker 3: that if you're in a more of an international tourist
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  Speaker 3: area like the Latu or Topo or Queenstown, those councils
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  Speaker 3: had provided exemptions for their businesses to open, but if
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  Speaker 3: you're elsewhere in the country, in many places they are not,
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  Speaker 3: So you know, I think it's not necessarily needs to
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  Speaker 3: be a council decision, but just for the stores to
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  Speaker 3: have the ability to open should they wish to do.
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  Speaker 2: Is there too much confusion or unfeness around what can
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  Speaker 2: open and what count.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it is super confusing, isn't it Easter? Because the
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  Speaker 3: thing is is that the actual public holidays are Good
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  Speaker 3: Friday and Easter Monday. Easter Sunday is not a public holiday,
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  Speaker 3: and yet the stores are closed. The retail stores are
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  Speaker 3: closed on Easter Sunday, so it's really confusing from that
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  Speaker 3: perspective in the first instance. So it's the same thing
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  Speaker 3: with hospitality, where you can go out and buy a
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  Speaker 3: meal or go to a cafe, but you shouldn't be
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  Speaker 3: paying a surd charge on Easter Sunday. So it is
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  Speaker 3: quite confusing because everybody feels that Easter Sunday is the
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  Speaker 3: holiday because you know, a highly Christian religious event, but
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  Speaker 3: actually Easter Monday is the holiday. So it is really confusing.
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  Speaker 3: And the stores can open on the Monday, but they
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  Speaker 3: can open on the Monday.
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  Speaker 2: And then it's confusing if you're a young worker and
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  Speaker 2: you're not entirely sure what your entitlements are and things.
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  Speaker 2: How are retailers reacting to potential changes to the Holiday
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  Speaker 2: Act to kind of simplify all this of it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the Holidays Act doesn't really influence Easter trading,
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  Speaker 3: but we know that Minister then Valden is looking at
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  Speaker 3: pro writering sick leaves and changing your annual holidays so
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  Speaker 3: that they start to recrue on an hourly basis from
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  Speaker 3: the day that you start. So the sick cleve entitlement
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  Speaker 3: is a complicated one because at the moment, if you
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  Speaker 3: work part time, you're entitled to ten days sickly. So
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  Speaker 3: if you were and in retail, there's lots of part
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  Speaker 3: time workers, So if you were one day weeks and
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  Speaker 3: you can take ten days sickly, which would be ten weeks,
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  Speaker 3: and you'd have your four weeks leave, so you'd only
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  Speaker 3: work thirty eight weeks of the fifty two weeks that
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  Speaker 3: are allocated. So we don't feel that that's fair, and
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  Speaker 3: so a pro rated sicklyave is actually a much more
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  Speaker 3: accurate way for people to be able to be taking
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  Speaker 3: sickle in the first place. So you know, if you
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  Speaker 3: work one day a week, you'd be entitled to when
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  Speaker 3: a normal work week is five days, you'd be entitled
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  Speaker 3: to twenty percent of the sickleave.
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  Speaker 2: Carolyn, how much do businesses benefit from being able to
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  Speaker 2: make their own decision as to whether they open over Easter?
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  Speaker 2: You know how much they financially benefit, because to be honest,
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  Speaker 2: I would suspect that they experience a boom and sales
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  Speaker 2: around these days of closure. Anyway, it seems like every
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  Speaker 2: man and his wife is out shopping to prepare for
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  Speaker 2: the one day that they can't hit out. It does
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  Speaker 2: already feel like it's a very busy time and people
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  Speaker 2: are doing well throughout Easter.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, So you know what we do now is when
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  Speaker 3: there's holidays like this where we've got a long weekend
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  Speaker 3: of four days, there's more people out about. People are
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  Speaker 3: in that holiday mode and they may have traveled away
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  Speaker 3: from home and are more likely to spend money. Now
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  Speaker 3: in this sort of economy, when it's been really tough
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  Speaker 3: for retailers and we're seeing stores, you know, may having
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  Speaker 3: downward trend and sales year on year, you know, just
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  Speaker 3: to have a couple of days where you've got a
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  Speaker 3: four day weekend and you've got people in your story
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  Speaker 3: every day and they're willing to spend and are spending
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  Speaker 3: is really helpful.
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  Speaker 2: Carolyn Young, thanks so much for your time this morning.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: Karen Young is the chief executive of Retail New Zealand,
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  Speaker 2: and thank you very much for your text. You might
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  Speaker 2: ast Welcome to Texas Morning. On ninety two and ninety two.
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  Speaker 2: One text reads Easter Sunday is not a public holiday. However,
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  Speaker 2: I work in a bottle store and it's closed and
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  Speaker 2: I don't get paid because of that. Somebody else said morning.
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  Speaker 2: One thing that many people don't know about Easter Sundays.
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  Speaker 2: You don't get time and a half if you have
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  Speaker 2: to work. I worked many years in a hotel and
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  Speaker 2: it's just normal payday. It probably relates to laws made
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  Speaker 2: when hardly anyone worked on a Sunday. I think you're
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  Speaker 2: probably right about that mail. So the thing is that
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  Speaker 2: everyone wins and loses. It depends what kind of business
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  Speaker 2: you work in, where you're working, what kind of job
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  Speaker 2: you have. You know, that's the thing. It's sort of
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  Speaker 2: while it can be amazing for one person. And I
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  Speaker 2: had a lovely text from Kathy who said she had
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  Speaker 2: time at the beach on a public holiday and had
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  Speaker 2: the pleasure of seeing a rainbow and it was wonderful.
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  Speaker 2: For other people, they're missing out on pay that they
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  Speaker 2: thought that they were going to get. Text here reads
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  Speaker 2: we don't have outdated laws. Just go to Europe Farm
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  Speaker 2: or occasions when shops are closed Holand for example, outside
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  Speaker 2: the tourist area's shops are closed every Sunday morning. And
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  Speaker 2: I totally get that ry And look, if you're not
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  Speaker 2: a tourist spot, you should absolutely be able to close
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  Speaker 2: and have the day off. But if you are a
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  Speaker 2: spot where your business really benefits from it, shouldn't you
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  Speaker 2: be able to decide Your local cans will be able
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  Speaker 2: to decide whether you do open or not. I am
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  Speaker 2: finally here, Francisca. Carolyn Young's organization is driven by desperation
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  Speaker 2: and greed. If people need stuff, they will still bar
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  Speaker 2: it when the shops open again. How has our society
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  Speaker 2: become so useless that people can't last without the odd
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  Speaker 2: day that shops aren't open. Let shop workers have a
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  Speaker 2: couple of guaranteed days off. Thank you for the text
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  Speaker 2: you can keep them coming ninety two ninety two.
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