Posts Tagged ‘Job’

Job hutting and the earthquake

Well it’s a long break from here. I have been up to a lot of things recently, but with completion of all prescribed texts just few weeks, the pressure of finding a job is becoming immense.

I tried quite hard in the last few months, taking time off from my usual activities like here just to write up countless number of cover letters. The result is that I have already lost count on rejection letters. Maybe I should publish each one of them here so I can keep my count.

The trouble is, town planning is a relatively small field and the opportunities, especially graduate opportunities are not always easy to come by.  I have even looked beyond my field and willing to settle something relevant such as policy making or fields in human geography, but only to face even stronger competitions. It’s almost certain that I will finish all courses without a job in the field, so I’m now seriously considering advancing on a master degree, but I’m really not the bookworm type.

However, in this sense, it’s sorry to say, but the Earthquake in Christchurch might be just how the country would finally get out of the recession. Media is already reporting that recession for some tradesmen are already “over” – it’s a terrible way to end it. With money compensated, people would be eager to replace items damaged from the earthquake, which would certainly fuel both building and retail industry, gaining long term profits from the short term pain.

Anyway, here’s my plan, I’m keeping this blog open for now – however, without a job prospect, I have little interest of reading and doing stuffs that are not very related to having a future career.

TVNZ's real problem

The government.

TVNZ is not a fully funded state broadcaster like BBC domestic broadcasting because as a small nation, we probably cannot afford it. Therefore its channels carry adverts, and is exposed to the what Nats are usually proud to say "real business world" out there and needs to compete its way out.

Under the current economic situation, we see countless number of privately owned businesses experiencing significantly reduced profit, or even go into deficit. If you are an investor to a large corporation, you wouldn't expect your dividend to be as high as last year, or you may just get ready to sacrifise your dividend for a year to keep your investment safe.

So Why John Key, aka "the man with real economic sense"  is expecting a unrealistic dividend from TVNZ:

From the Crown's point of view we have $200 million invested in TVNZ, that's the equity in TVNZ, if we don't receive a return on that equity and we don't receive a dividend, that's less money the Crown has to pay for hospital beds, less money it has to pay its doctors and less money it has to pay its teachers.

Nice words, sounds sympathetic, but does it really mean anything? Last year TVNZ paid out $10 million to the government, don't tell me that our health and education system would fail for a shortfall of $10 million dollars.

As TVNZ is going to cut 90 employees, more pressure will be added to the dole queue. So what National government did is, forcing TVNZ to reduce costs by reduce amount of local made programmes (that's what state owned media is for, in my opinion) and axes kiwi jobs to meet government dividend demand so Mr Key can have more money to pay for hospital beds.

I hope those people who will lost their job could find a job soon otherwise the whole thing is just pointless - a large chunk of the few million dollars dividend will be used to pay the added dole queue anyway, when those people really should be working and contributing at least some value back to our society. Now you call that real business sense?

By the way, I remember this government was claiming itself dedicated to keep kiwi jobs.

It's very hard to believe there's no hidden agenda behind this movement.

nine-day fortnight work plan released

In one sentence, Government will pay minimum wage of $12.5for up to 5 hours per day to employees who have taken an extra day off. For rest of the scheme:

• Will be available to businesses with more than 100 employees. There are about 1600 companies which fit this category and they employ 580,000 people.
• Will be available to businesses from March 27, 2009 through until December 31, 2010 - but only for up to a six month period within these dates.
• The government’s contribution will be paid direct to employers to give to the workers it has negotiated a voluntary agreement with to reduce work hours to a nine-day fortnight.
• Will be available to up to 10 employees for each averted redundancy.
• Will apply to employees who have been full-time for the two months preceding going into the scheme.
• Is anticipated to be picked up by between 20,000 and 25,000 workers, making the approximate cost $16 million to $20 million.

Overall I'm pretty happy about it, and I think it will be a way reduce redundancies in big companies. In a recession the most import thing to maintain is not just economic growth, but fundamentally, confidence. If employees are given the promise that they will not be made redundant, it will give them confidence, and they are more likely to spend rather than save for the unforeseeable future.

But I do have a mixed feeling about this. Employees are not responsible for the current economic situation, making them suffer should be the last resort to keep this economic going.  There are long suspicions that some employers are using economic recession as an excuse to carry out restructuring. I think this scheme should only be available for companies who are experiencing losses, not just a reduction of profits.   I can see the same greed which was responsible for the current situation, is still in the market. Companies should just accept a significantly reduced profit for now, rather let the same greed take over, dreaming of the high profits they've experienced in the last few years.

The scheme will only work if employers are welling to join it, but I don't think they are. As a employer,  how much can you save from this? Let's assume a company maximises its opportunity, put 10 employee who receives an average $20 wage and work 8 hours a day in this. So the calculation goes like:

13 x 10 x 20 x 8 = $20,800

For a 100 employees company, that's kind of nothing -  make one employee redundant saves more than this, and that size of businesses don't fail for short of 20,000 dollars.

Or maybe the whole thing is just another publicity stunt from John Key?