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Post by jonesy on Dec 22, 2011 9:47:57 GMT 12
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Post by flyjoe180 on Dec 22, 2011 9:56:55 GMT 12
The Christchurch earthquakes would have a lot to do with the increase. How many people come to NZ from elsewhere, live here for a few years, get citizenship and then make the move to Australia as New Zealanders rather than under their original nationality? There must be a thousand variables. NZ is not a bad place to live. More room if people keep moving out! Sweet as.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 22, 2011 11:36:34 GMT 12
A quarter of all of the diesel locomotive engineers in Wellington have either just handed in their notice, or are about to hand in their notice as soon as they get the medical clearance to work driving trains in Australia. Other depots around the country are similarly being gradually cleaned out of experienced staff. The simple fact is that the big mining companies in Australia set the benchmark wages for locomotive engineers in Australasia and they prefer to hire Kiwis to drive their huge iron-ore trains. So KiwiRail are losing locomotive engineers faster than they can train replacements. And there is a HUGE retirement bubble coming up over the next few years to add to their woes. Talking to many of my workmates from Wellington who are jumping ship, they've been thinking about it for a while, but most of them have said that proposed labour laws changes signalled by the current National government have simply added to reasons for going and have finally pushed most of them to make up their minds to jump ship across the Ditch to the highly-unionised environment of the mining industry in Western Australia. Meanwhile, CityRail Sydney and Veola in Melbourne are continuing to entice drivers away from Tranz Metro Wellington with offers of better money and conditions, which is adding to the huge driver shortage there. Most days, numerous train services get cancelled in the Wellington area because there simply aren't enough drivers to cover all services. I guess one day, someone will be the last to leave NZ and will turn-off the light-switch!  |
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Post by lesterpk on Dec 22, 2011 13:22:52 GMT 12
When you guys move to Perth, pack lots of Watties tomato souce and Maggi onion soup for dips. Been here for nearly 5 months and its the little things like that that get you. Like the sauce, we have tried 5-6 different brands and yet to find one thats anything like Watties. Griffins choc chip cookies or anything similar is unheard of much to dismay of the 4 yr old.
You need to do your homework really well as well, insurance of all types is much more expensive here and for get the thngs you get in NZ like lifetime no claims bonus, you can opt to pay an extra $100 a year or so to protect your no claims if you like instead.
Having said that, its currently 28 degrees and sunny outside and forecast to stay that way for the next couple of weeks, fuel is cheaper, rent is cheaper than Auckland, and I'm on double what I was on in NZ for a similar job.
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Post by Darren Masters on Dec 22, 2011 13:53:56 GMT 12
Must admit that coming back here now (Sydney) for a few weeks since I have lived in NZ 3 yrs I have forgotten just how much cheaper things are over here compared to NZ. Food, fuel etc etc. You can't even compare it. Also, I have forgotten just how many people there were here (not many of whom are Australian any more) and just how much the roads are choking up. I swear that yesterday when I was in the Westfield shopping centre there were more people there than in Auckland itself! Yep, NZ might be a lot more expensive for the above I mentioned but give me the lesser population any day!
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 22, 2011 13:54:39 GMT 12
A large proportion of my workmates who have buggered off to WA, or who are about to head over there are working "fly-in, fly-out" contracts whereby they get flown to Port Headland and stay for 14 nights (with everything laid on by the mining company) and work six shifts, then have a one-day rest period, then work another six shifts, then get flown back to their home in NZ to spend 14 nights (and thirteen days) off duty. Then they repeat it all over again. Amazingly, most of them are actually employed in NZ as NZ employees and are paid in NZ (around quarter-of-a-mill p.a.) which means they pay tax to the NZ government instead of the Oz government. The mining companies pay accident & sickness insurance to cover them while they are in Oz, and also pay their ACC employer levies in NZ. I'm amazed that the Aussie government haven't jumped up and down about Kiwis working in Australia, but being employed and paid in NZ, with their income tax going to the NZ government.
The big problem for us chaps working for KiwiRail is that operational staff shortages are now so out of control that we are continually getting turned down when we apply for paid annual leave, unless you put in for it a year or more ahead, and as we get 30 days paid annual leave per year, by the time you add all the lieu days to that, some of us have accumulated HUGE totals of outstanding annual leave. And as more chaps bugger off, that situation gets considerably worse, with many blokes now giving the reason they are buggering off to be the fact that it is getting too hard to take paid leave when you want to without planning years ahead. We get the farcical situation where the company's beancounters send out letters to employees telling them they MUST use their accumulated annual leave because it is a huge debt on the company's books, yet when we apply to use that leave, we get turned down, because there are no available staff to cover our jobs while we are on leave. Real Monty Python stuff!! I've had three such letters this year, yet until they sort out their staff shortage issues, I haven't got a hope in hell of using up all of that leave. And there is no way I'll ever exchange it for cash....they can get stuffed, it is leave and if I cannot take it as leave now, then I'll continue to sit on it knowing that every year it increases in value as we get an annual wage increase.
And Aussie companies have been poaching the tutors who train new locomotive engineers too, which is another thing making the situation even worse.
The sad thing is that it is happening in so many skilled fields with NZ losing experienced workers that the country really cannot afford to lose, yet you cannot blame workers for flogging their services off elsewhere to the highest bidder if NZ employers aren't prepared to pay the benchmark wages for this part of the world as set by many big Aussie employers.
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Post by jonesy on Dec 22, 2011 15:00:09 GMT 12
Its probably an even split of skilled/unskilled people leaving. I'm lucky I have a series of good quals which transfer easily over there, but theres a lot that are just turning up expecting to be handed a job on a plate. Whats more worrying is what skill levels are coming in to counter those going out. Its easy for the Government to say "we had a nett gain of around say 10000 people this year so thats great" when theres only so many jobs for taxi drivers, fruit pickers, dairy owners and so on. One of the main reasons for us leaving next year is that I want my kids to at least have a better chance of getting a decent career over there than they do here.  |
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 22, 2011 15:47:13 GMT 12
Talking about disgruntled workers....I hope things never get so bad at KiwiRail that employees create a website like this!!  • CSX-Sucks.comAn ex-workmate who was based at Napier, and who occasionally relieved at Gisborne headed off to the USA in the mid-1990s to work for Wisconsin Central, then he worked for CSX for a few years. These days, he's based in Montana, driving trains for Burlington Northern Santa Fe and he occasionally sends me photographs (via email) looking back from the locomotive cab towards Boeing 737 fuselages on freight cars on his trains. Apparently they are manufactured somewhere in the mid-west, then railed to Seattle, Washington where the wings are attached and the airliners are fitted out. He sent me an email earlier this year of a derailed train (he wasn't driving it) with several Boeing 737 fuselages amongst the piled-up wreckage. I guess that would have been a rather large insurance claim.
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Post by chinapilot on Dec 22, 2011 19:51:06 GMT 12
Interestingly I'm reading this thread sitting on my balcony reading the WSJ commenting on a possible scaling back of the economy in China which is the worst kept secret in Asia...relevance?
Most of Australia's 'boom' is China driven [around 25% of exports] so any slow down is going to affect the Oz economy with resultant employment problems so maybe the grass is greener at the moment but could become a bit shriveled.
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Post by obiwan27 on Dec 22, 2011 20:06:00 GMT 12
To each their own. People have been migrating between Australia and NZ for decades and worldwide for decades. It's natural for skilled and qualified people to migrate to where the jobs are and it depends on your background/circumstances/outlook on where you chose to live and work at any given time/stage in your life. Good luck to anyone anywhere choosing to migrate wherever in chose of a better/more stable/better paying job/future or whatever.
It's part of the globalised workforce that is a reality and has been for some time.
What annoys me is people who have migrated to Australia, England, America or wherever and slag off NZ as if it's absolutely the worst place in the world to live, they are glad they left, they'll never go back, blah blah blah.
Personally I am happy to live here, your life is what you make it and is not defined by where you happen to live in the world. Many of the issues people complain about are common throughout the world it seems to me.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 22, 2011 21:01:19 GMT 12
Chinapilot, i saw a report on the TV the other day about how China's housing market is collapsing bigtime, loads of investors have lost huge amounts. I think they are sinking into the abyss that the rest of the world has already fallen into. This could be the beginning of a new Dark Ages I think.
As for people leaving NZ, I have no problem with it. The place is far too overcrowded as it is. It's not the nice quiet simple place it used to be.
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Post by chinapilot on Dec 23, 2011 15:40:14 GMT 12
Yes Dave you are right...The inflated housing market is taking a bath. China isn't the savior of the Western World and it worries me that so many big companies have tied most of their future growth prospects with it.
In HK the housing market has cooled a little but the economy is OK [for now].
You are not the only one thinking that things are going back to the 'Dark Ages'.
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Post by Officer Crabtree on Dec 23, 2011 17:25:49 GMT 12
The ties between WONZ and the RoF forum are amazing. A few hours ago someone mentioned that we were going into the dark ages...they were referring to PC but still.
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