Steve Bennett and Associates

Some signs of economic recovery were revealed by EMA, read more . . . . .

tracy — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:01:30 +0000

Unemployment rate falls, but little growth in employment

There were 7,000 fewer people unemployed in the December 2011 quarter, Statistics New Zealand said today.

In the December 2011 quarter compared with the September 2011 quarter:

The unemployment rate fell 0.3 percentage points, to 6.3 percent.

3,000 more people were employed.

The employment rate was flat, at 63.9 percent.

“We saw a steady employment rate because the increase in the number of people employed kept pace with the growing working-age population. The employment rate has not changed for three consecutive quarters,” industry and labour statistics manager Diane Ramsay said.

Part-time employment rose 3.0 in the December quarter. In unadjusted terms, the largest annual increase in part-time employment was in the education and training industry. In contrast, full-time employment fell 0.8 percent.

These changes in full-time and part-time employment were reflected in a fall in the hours worked. Both actual hours and usual hours worked fell – 1.4 percent and 0.9 percent respectively. The fall in actual hours follows a September quarter peak in actual hours that was similar to that for make full-time employment.

The Household Labour Force Survey results are based on a representative sample of 15,000 households throughout New Zealand. The survey is designed to produce estimates of the numbers of people employed, unemployed, and not in the labour force.

A recent article form EMA provides some food for thought on employment trends . . .

tracy — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:37:25 +0000

Employers opting for more experience as 40,000 youngsters get squeezed out.

Old people have displaced more than 40,000 teenagers from jobs in the past five years as more choose to stay on in the workforce and employers shun youth for experience.

Research by the Salvation Army’s social policy unit has found that the number of 15 to 19 years olds in paid work dropped by 42,600 in the last five years, while the numbers still working beyond 65 jumped by 40,200.

Researcher Alan Johnson said employers were holding on to experienced workers past the traditional retirement age – at the expense of taking on inexperienced young people. “There is a tight labour market, so people without skills and a work ethic are the ones that are going to be excluded first,” he said. “There is this huge increase in employment among people over 65, so employers faced with the prospect of employing someone, often for the same sort of work, who is older or a school-leaver, are possibly electing to opt for more mature workers because they are more reliable.”

As a share of each age group, employment rates fell in every five-year age bracket below 50, and rose in every age above 50 despite the recession.

A recent publication indicates that property prices have finally recovered to the pre GFC levels read more . . . . . .

tracy — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:17:07 +0000

National Property Values rose +1.1% for the quarter ending 31 Jan, and are now 3.3% below the previous market peak in late 2007, Quotable Value said in a report. The national gain has come from rising values in Auckland, which are up +5.1% on the same time last year. The number of house sales climbed by a fifth in December from a year earlier, according to Real Estate Institute figures last month, though the number of homes on the market remains low by historical standards. Christchurch property values were +3.7% above the same month a year ago, with the average sale price at $377,040 up from $371,885.

Here is an interesting article, the youth of today…

tracy — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:08:42 +0000

NZ’s first Young Managing Director of the Year

Christchurch teenager James Agnew has become NZICA’s first Young Managing Director of the Year Award for his leadership of a student Young Enterprise company producing a sustainable-energy based emergency power generator. The 17 year old is Managing Director of Advanced Clean Energies, a company of six St Thomas of Canterbury College students, founded to develop and manufacture their “Lion Emergency Power Generator”.

Interesting Challenges

tracy — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:59:34 +0000

A recent article poses some interesting challenges to employers ….

New technology presenting challenges to traditional workplace practices

The rapid development of new communications technology is challenging the old way of doing things in today’s workplaces, says David Lowe, Employment Services Manager for the Employers & Manufacturers Association.

“New technology such as smart phones and finger scanning are doing away with traditional work records, timesheets and other data entry,” Mr Lowe said.

“Smart phones with global positioning can determine when and where an employee is at any time, so keeping a record of their hours to be charged, and generating an invoice, is much simpler.

“They also present new social media challenges for employers. “Finger scanning systems can replace manual timesheets and data entry. “

Whereas this sort of technology is total normal for an entire generation of newer workers, for others it presents a constant round of surprises.

“New systems are also blurring this line between work and home life, often to the advantage of both employers and employees. “The downside is unhappy employees can make damaging comments about their job or employer on Facebook, and others may spend far too much personal time browsing the web at work.

“These are just some of the challenges from new technology facing employers who must stay up to speed with what’s becoming possible, and develop clear guidelines on how to use it productively in the workplace. “To help with this EMA has just published Employees and Technology so employers can deal systematically with these workplace issues.”

Statistics New Zealand has just released some information which may be of interest. . . . . . .

tracy — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:58:03 +0000

According to the statistics New Zealand country report, New Zealand in Profile: 2012, food prices in NZ have jumped significantly in the past five years while on average wages have going up by $5 an hour. The report is a wrap of key statistics released throughout the previous year. It shows a substantial jump in the price of most food items, a higher unemployment rate than Australia and a projected national population of almost five million by 2021. Fruit prices are up +30% from 2006 prices while vegetables are up by +27.7%. Fresh milk and cheese have increased +24.1% and +51.3% respectively, and bread has jumped +40.0%. Wages have risen +24.0% over the five years, to an average of $898 a week and $24.78 per hour. Unemployment in New Zealand sits at 6.8 per cent compared with 5.3 per cent in Australia.

Financial Reporting Requirements

tracy — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:37:10 +0000

You may have heard about the proposed changes to the Financial Reporting Requirements – refer to the table below for the proposed changes currently being considered.

Summary of changes to the financial reporting system

The following table outlines changed for companies, the charitable sector and other impacted entities.

Class of Entity	Change and Impact
Larges companies	Remove the requirement to prepare parent entity financial statements and leave it to the XRB to determine any parent company reporting obligations.
Medium-sized companies	Replace General Purpose Financial Reporting (GPFR) preparation requirements with Special Purpose Financial Reporting (SPFR) for tax purposes to minimum standards set by Inland Revenue.
Small companies	Replace simple format template reporting with SPFR for tax purposes to minimum standards set by Inland Revenue.
Issuers	The time within which companies, with preparation obligations, need to prepare financial reports will be reduced from five months to three months.
Subsidiary Companies	Where a group of companies has reporting obligations, they are no longer required to prepare a set of financial statements for the parent company. The obligation to prepare consolidated statements remains.
Medium and small limited partnerships	Replace the existing preparation requirement with special purpose reporting for tax purposes to minimum standards set by Inland Revenue
Large limited partnerships and partnerships	Introduce requirements to prepare GPFR, have them audited and distribute to the owners.
Registered Charities	Require the preparation of GPFR prepared in accordance with standards set by the XRB. The XRB has indicated that it is likely to use a simple format reporting approach for entities with operating expenditure <$2 million
Micro registered charities (annual operating expenditure ≤$40,000	Allow GPFR (which is likely to be simple format) to be prepared on a cash basis
Medium and small industrial and provident societies	Retain a requirement to file an annual return with the Registrar but remove the requirement to include financial statements.
Friendly societies that offer insurance services, and credit unions	Retain the requirement to file audited financial statements but remove the requirement on the Registrar to monitor them and report to Parliament
Other friendly societies	Retain preparation, assurance and distribution to members, but remove the filing requirement.
Gaming machine societies that operate gaming machines in commercial venues	Publication obligations vary according to the society’s legal form. Introduce a consistent requirement to file audited financial statements.
Gaming machine societies that operate gaming machines almost exclusively in their own premises	Require societies to distribute audited financial statements to members but do not introduce a publication requirement.
Retirement villages	All retirement villages are treated as though they are issuers for financial reporting villages. Remove that presumption for those that are not issuers in a real sense, which would allow the XRB to decide whether they could report in accordance with the second rather than the top tier of reporting.
Large Maori incorporations	In addition to the current preparation and audit requirements, require distribution to all beneficial owners.
Medium and small Maori incorporations	Remove the audit requirements
Maori land trusts	Empower the XRB to set default reporting requirements, but allow the Maori Land Court to vary those requirements to meet individual circumstances.

Recent announcement from Chart North

tracy — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:35:51 +0000

We are currently planning symposium in Whangarei called Totems and Totara, Innovation in the Creative sector, for May 10th -13th 2012. The programme includes an opportunity to showcase innovative and unusual ideas that have been develop or being developed in Northland. There is an Innovation Trade Fair planned for the Saturday of the symposium and we would like to get the message out to as many people that might want to be involved.
We will also be offering workshop and speakers on issues like patenting and intellectual property ownership for those that wish to put products and ideas on the market.
If you think of someone with interesting ideas and they need further information they can go to the http://chartnorth.com/chart/project/Totems_and_Totara website or call me on my contact below.
Thanks for your consideration of this.

Preventing fraud – robust frameworks minimise the risk of fraud occurring

tracy — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:51:54 +0000

A recent article published by the OAG highlighted factors associated with Fraud Prevention contrast these to how your workplace works:

The elements that are generally recognised as helping an organisation to successfully prevent fraud are shown here with the percentage of “yes” answers, ordered from highest to lowest;

Have a staff code of conduct (91.6%)
Have managers who understand their responsibilities for preventing and detecting the risk of fraud (89.4%)
Have a fraud policy (789.0%)
Take a proactive approach to preventing fraud (77.2%)
Have employees who understand their responsibilities for preventing and detecting the risks of fraud (73.2%)
Have a clear policy on accepting gifts or services (71.2%)
Screen new employees, including criminal history checks (71.0%)
Communicate their staff code of conduct regularly – annually of biannually (69.7%)
Designate a person to be responsible for fraud risks, including investigation (67.7%)
Review fraud controls regularly – annually or biannually (67.0%)
Communicate their fraud policy regularly – annually or biannually (64.3%)
Carry out due diligence on new supplies, including credit checks and checks for conflicts of interest (47.5%) and;
Offer fraud awareness training (23.6%)

A recent Newsletter Insert which may be of interest.

tracy — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:10:33 +0000

STATISTICS

Wage rate grow 2.0 percent

In the September 2011 quarter, salary and wage rates (including overtime) rose 0.6 percent.

In the year to the September 2011 quarter:

Salary and wage rates (including overtime) increased 2.0 percent.
Overtime wage rates increased 2.2 percent.
Private sector salary and ordinary time wage rates increased 2.0 percent

>>more Labour Cost Index (Salary and Wage Rates): September 2011 quarter [1 November 2011]

Unemployment rate relatively flat

In the September 2011 quarter compared with the June 2011 quarter:

The unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage points to 6.6 percent.
Unemployment rose by 3,000 people.
The number of people employed increase by 5,000.
The employment rate was flat at 63.9 percent.

All figures have been seasonally adjusted.

>>more Household Labour Force Survey: September 2011 quarter [3 November 2011]