Totally agree. The out of date controls of letting temporary workers into the country to boost the industries that you mention, that we so desperately need to keep the country going and making its way in the World, make no sense. They are creating enormous stress on industry leaders that have enough on their plates without homemade problems that achieve absolutely no benefit. Just bureaucracy gone completely mad.
NZ pretty slack when it comes to productivity to start with
As a commentator pointed out the day both of countries on chart are small, remote, heavily reliant on natural resources:
Two countries: 1 success story, 1 failure
“ At the top of every bubble, everyone is convinced it's not yet a bubble.”
NZ pretty slack when it comes to productivity to start with
As a commentator pointed out the day both of countries on chart are small, remote, heavily reliant on natural resources:
Two countries: 1 success story, 1 failure
Well, yes - but lets stay with the lingo, please: Let's call it a two horse race with one of the horses ending up second last and the other one on a reputable second place - and hey, we always can claim the better climate;
But hey, apart from semantics ... one of our problems is that we always try to just work harder (or force cheap labour to do it for us) instead of working smarter. No surprise the outcome is not smart either ;
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"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future" (Niels Bohr)
NZ pretty slack when it comes to productivity to start with
As a commentator pointed out the day both of countries on chart are small, remote, heavily reliant on natural resources:
Two countries: 1 success story, 1 failure
Good old NZ. An economy that is based on our housing market, with a few bits and bobs tacked on the side. And agree with (part) of BP's statement - we try to compensate by working harder & longer
NZ pretty slack when it comes to productivity to start with
As a commentator pointed out the day both of countries on chart are small, remote, heavily reliant on natural resources:
Two countries: 1 success story, 1 failure
The stark difference as I see it is that Iceland has leveraged their knowledge in primary industries, particularly fishing, fish production, geothermal energy and hydro energy, to build "best of breed" technology companies that have come up with clever solutions making them some of the World's biggest in their small specialists fields. These technology companies have been able to grow because the Icelandic primary industry companies themselves have encouraged the development and are always the first to implement the new technology. Like the fish factory I visited 3 years ago that used to process 300 tonnes per day with 180 people, running 3 x 8 hour shifts.
Today they process 2,000 tonnes with 30 people, all technicians.
I took some of these guys around NZ fish factories in 2019 and they were simply flabbergasted. One of them told me afterwards that most of the processing facilities would never even get a processing licence under European regulations.
Why does NZ not have lots of leading technology companies grown out of our primary industries. Of course we have a few shining examples like Gallagher's, (dare I say it) ATM and a few others that are World leaders in their field, but far fewer than we should.
The No 8 wire is not always enough
The stark difference as I see it is that Iceland has leveraged their knowledge in primary industries, particularly fishing, fish production, geothermal energy and hydro energy, to build "best of breed" technology companies that have come up with clever solutions making them some of the World's biggest in their small specialists fields. These technology companies have been able to grow because the Icelandic primary industry companies themselves have encouraged the development and are always the first to implement the new technology. Like the fish factory I visited 3 years ago that used to process 300 tonnes per day with 180 people, running 3 x 8 hour shifts.
Today they process 2,000 tonnes with 30 people, all technicians.
I took some of these guys around NZ fish factories in 2019 and they were simply flabbergasted. One of them told me afterwards that most of the processing facilities would never even get a processing licence under European regulations.
Why does NZ not have lots of leading technology companies grown out of our primary industries. Of course we have a few shining example like Gallaghers, dear I say it ATM and a few others that are World leaders in their field, but far fewer than we should.
The No 8 wire is not always enough
You mention in your post one of the big differences between Iceland and NZ: 8 hour shifts!
In many primary industry jobs in NZ 12 hour shifts still seem to be the standard - and it is not unheard of that companies insist on people working double shifts! I do know some people to whom this happened.
Our working conditions in the primary industy are often back breaking - and no way for the respective workers to get a job and a life. Forget a family life if you have to slave in one of these jobs. This obviously makes it difficult for the companies to find willing workers (but they are not smart enough to introduce more humane working conditions), and it makes as well sure that the workers they find are less effective than they could be. Only a braindead manager would ask a worker to double up on a 12 hour shift (resulting in low productivity and high accident rates) ... and we do have too many of these managers around.
Last edited by BlackPeter; 13-04-2022 at 10:17 AM.
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"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future" (Niels Bohr)
To me it feels like... Job Time = 70+% spent talking/writing about it (ticking all the over-regulation boxes) and 30-% doing the actual job.
Actually..Organisations managing these regulated environments are parasitic in nature and are a cost to industry with little to no reward..The more regulation introduced the more cost to industry, often not boosting production..this puts pressure on managing other costs and expenditure, unfortunately one being wages/salaries.
Another parasitic activity is "middle-men" activity.
The government is particularly good at this via taxes..Take away money only to redistribute it somewhere else (and the expense to do this)..In theory this is sought to be a beneficial practice, but sometimes there are knee-jerked taxes which are acted upon to gain political "brownie points" to satisfy the general public's moral opinion and to quiet general unrest...However some can be harmful in the longer term, for example, taking money away from an overly efficient production sector and redistributing it back into a struggling non-productive sector.
As we can see there are many moving parts within the system..Just to say we are going to regulate here and regulate there, or, lets lift the minimum wage (through more regulation) is naive thinking and will not help raise production efficiency. ..
The solution is complex and made worse by the ingrained culture and mindsets of that Country's population...Greece during it's recent very long Depression is a good example.
For now, the best solution is: 1..To slowly alter the masses mindset via media and financial handouts (this is happening and many don't like it) 2.. reduce the amount of regulation. cut back on outdated regulations and those which conflict with other regulations within the overall system thus creating a "less talk more do" working environment..The Government has started doing this, the property sector springs to mind..However the complexity of the problem could be beyond many at the present time..More advanced AI technology may be needed (enhanced system modelings) and for us humans to have faith in accepting these system models outcomes..
Models have been around for a while now and improving all the time but as we can see, so far the Public's faith and understanding in modeling is not that great....weather forecasting and Covid are 2 that spring to my mind..
That enough from me for now ...time to stop this unproductive writing on the forums, get off my bottom and do some productive work.
Originally Posted by percy
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- and hey, we always can claim the better climate;
;
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