Businesses expect little change

Business confidence in Taranaki showed a slight improvement in the first six months of the year, as more people found work than in the same period of 2018, new regional economic data shows.

However, the majority of businesses expected no change looking forward, with almost a fifth reporting the local economy would get worse, Venture Taranaki’s half yearly Taranaki Trends report revealed.

The report also showed the number of school leavers out of work in the region exceeded the national average.

While regional unemployment dropped to 4.1 per cent, from 5.4 per cent in the past year, and 58,134 jobs were filled, 16.1 per cent of people aged under 24 were not on a tertiary course or working – higher than the 11.9 per cent national average.

Taranaki Chamber of Commerce chief executive Arun Chaudhari said more promotion of courses offered at the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (Witt) by businesses and schools could help increase opportunities for unemployed school leavers.

‘‘Many of the successful polytechs in the country have buy-in from the community, and that is what we should be doing here,’’ he said. ‘‘We need Witt to become the education centre of choice for school leavers.’’

The planned $330 million Taranaki

Base Hospital development was welcomed but the region needed more big infrastructure projects, he said.

The manufacturing sector provided the biggest workforce in the region with slightly fewer than 9000 jobs, or 15 per cent, followed by agriculture, forestry and fishing with 6000 jobs.

The smallest sector was information media and telcos with fewer than 1000 jobs.

Since 2000, employment had increased 22 per cent in Taranaki with growth in all sectors except agriculture, forestry and fishing, and information media and telecommunications.

The report showed Taranaki’s population had grown 7.3 per cent to 117,561 since 2013, with New Plymouth reaching 80,679, or 8.8 per cent growth, according to figures taken from the 2018 census.

In contrast, Statistics New Zealand’s regional population growth figures published last week showed a 1.35 per cent increase for Taranaki for the 12 months ending in June.

In other highlights, building consents totalled $329.5m, up 2.6 per cent, on the previous year to June.

Stratford had the biggest drop in consents with a 39 per cent fall, while New Plymouth building consents increased 11.3 per cent to $262.48 million.

Taranaki had the third highest visitor spend in the country with $417m, helping boost regional GDP 2.7 per cent to $7712m.

Visitors stayed 668,880 ‘‘guest nights’’ at commercial accommodation outlets, up 0.1 per cent but shunned South Taranaki, which had a 6.8 per cent drop in visitor numbers and 4.1 per cent drop in guest nights.

New Plymouth’s GDP grew 3.5 per cent, to $5349m, in the same 12 month period to June 30.

Retail sales were also up per cent to $1336m.

House valuation increased in South Taranaki were the highest in the region at 9.4 per cent followed by Stratford with 6.3 per cent, and New Plymouth with 2.9 per cent. The average price for a house in New Plymouth was now $463,474.

The latest data also showed there were 15,264 businesses in Taranaki in 2018, a 20 per cent increase since 2000. 4.9