Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Alan McDonald: Employers and Manufacturers Association Head of Advocacy and Strategy on the rising unemployment figures

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Alan McDonald: Employers and Manufacturers Association Head of Advocacy and Strategy on the rising unemployment figures · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Unemployment sitting at four point six percent for the June quarter.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: That's a three year high, and it's an increase from
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: four point three percent from quarter one. It means basically,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: thirty three thousand people who had jobs this time last
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: year are now out of work. But what a business
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: is on the ground seeing right now, because remember that's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: old data by now, isn't it. The Employer Manufacturers Association
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Alan McDonald's with me, Alan, good morning, Can I Ryan?
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: What are you seeing? How much worse are job cuts
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: going to get? In your view?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, unfortunately, I think it's going to continue. We've been
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: seeing a steady increase in the numbers of businesses calling
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: out advice line, our helpline for our members to talk
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: about restructuring and redundancy, and I really had expected it
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: to start heading the other way, but we just hit
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: a record high in July of one hundred and sixty
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: three calls in a month.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: What are they asking you these businesses?
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: It's basically how to go about the right way to
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: make people redundant or downsize their businesses because the business
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: simply isn't there and they haven't got the work for
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: those people.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: What sort of businesses are calling you. We're looking at
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of method necks and taranaki. We're looking
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: at the pulp mills. Are recycling paper mill in Auckland
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in the news in the last couple of days because
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: of energy costs, they're looking at getting rid of folks.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: What are you seeing? What types of businesses?
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: It's across the board. It's most of our members are
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: what you'd call smaller medium businesses, so smaller than probably
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: a hundred or fewer than one hundred employees, and all
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: parts of the economy, really manufacturing struggling quite badly at
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: the moment, but it's all sectors of the economy.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Once adrien Or decides to start lowering rates, how much
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: longer will it take for you, guys, for your members
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to feel it.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Well, if the Reserve Bank does lower rates, it's likely
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: can only be zero point two five. I think it's
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: more about the signal than anything else. There are a
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: few green shoots out there, and I think if the
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Reserve Bank did lower rates, that would be a signal
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: that says, look, things are going to get better and
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: try and hang on. But it takes a while for
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: those of those signals to flow through into reality. I
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: suppose twelve to eighteen months.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Usually, Allen, thank you very much for your time. Allan
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: McDonald the Employers and Manufacturers Association.
• 2:25
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• 2:29
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• 2:29
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