Warnings sounded on economic front
‘‘We are at peak tourists, where is everyone sleeping? We just don't have the beds for them.’’
New Zealand needs to refresh its economic direction as immigration, construction and tourism reach capacity.
‘‘We are at peak construction, we don’t have the physical manpower or skilled people to carry its growth forward,’’ ANZ chief economist Cameron Bagrie said.
‘‘We have a skills mismatch across the country to where jobs are being created compared to where skills are.’’
Bagrie delivered his economic forecast as guest speaker at the recent Fieldays economic report launch at Mystery Creek.
He said New Zealand needed to transition to new economic drivers. It also needed strong economic leadership from its political leaders to manage change.
Employment was at a high at the moment, but New Zealand was ‘‘really scraping the bottom of the barrel’’ with so many people employed without the skill levels needed.
‘‘And this is in itself a sad indictment on the country with over 100,000 people still unemployed.’’
Migration was also under the spotlight.
Bagrie agreed the number of people coming into the country had to come back a little, but New Zealand still needed skilled migrants.
Investment into tourist accommodation was lagging and New Zealand could not take any more tourists.
‘‘We are at peak tourists, where is everyone sleeping? We just don’t have the beds for them.’’
New Zealand remained delicately poised in a world which had a volatile political landscape.
‘‘We are starting to see it in this country where the constituency is starting to push back.
‘‘People are looking for a new version of capitalism, no one knows what that looks like yet, but there will be change.
‘‘The government’s fiscal pol- icy has been pretty tight with the purse strings but it’s now at a dispensary state.’’
He said New Zealand’s economy had moved from being in the red and now in the black which ‘‘gives the government options’’.
‘‘Around the second quarter of next year, the country will have an injection of $600 million per quarter which will end up in peoples’ pockets to spend.
‘‘Given the current political climate we are likely to see Government spending more, and we have the money.
‘‘We are starting to see the Government trying to close the gaps with its social investment policy where it’s lifting unemployment benefits and working for families packages.’’
The key for this country’s future he said could be found in education.
‘‘Things are changing massively and we have to breed kids who are more flexible, innovative and adaptive to shake things up,’’ he said.
‘‘And we shouldn’t wait until they are at high school, it should be in preschool and primary education.
‘‘Odds are they’re going to lose a few jobs in their life and there will be a need to retrain.’’
Overall Bagrie remains confident our economy is better than other parts of the world.