Blog

Mortgages Take Up Half of Household Incomes

Blog
Mortgage payments are now accounting for about half of household income for many Kiwis according to a recent CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report. Data shows that mortgage holders were allocating 53 per cent of their income to making mortgage payments in the last quarter of 2022. This has now slightly dropped…

Reserve Bank Holds OCR Rate At 5.5 Per Cent

Blog
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has announced that it will be holding the official cash rate at 5.5 per cent as part of its Monetary Policy Statement. This is in keeping with analysts’ predictions and reaffirms the reserve bank’s position that the rate has reached a high enough…

Landlords Benefitting from Housing Shortage

Blog
Poverty and housing advocates are claiming that landlords are capitalising on the high demand and low housing supply to charge tenants higher rates. According to a joint paper released by the Treasury dubbed ‘What Drives Rents in New Zealand?’, landlords are setting rent prices as high as the income of…

Unemployment Rate Rises To 3.6pc

Blog
An unexpected surge in the official unemployment rate to 3.6% for the June quarter has been linked to a large number of new entrants joining the labour market. This is the second-highest level of unemployment recorded since June 2021 and marks an increment of 0.2% on the 3.4% reached in…

Annual Inflation Dips To 6pc

Blog
Further proving that the economy is cooling, the annual inflation rate has dipped to 6%, down from 7.2% at the start of the year and registering the third consecutive drop in rates since the record peak achieved in the June quarter of 2022. The quarterly inflation rate has meanwhile reached…

Small Business Owners Buckling Under Financial Strain

Blog
A recent Xero Small Business Survey has found that many small business owners are struggling financially to the point of no longer paying themselves to keep their businesses running. The survey was carried out online with 500 small business owner respondents from across the country. The study found that to…

NZ Q2 Business Confidence Rises Slightly

Blog
The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) has released the findings of its quarterly survey that indicate the country’s business confidence improved slightly in June despite the economy still being in recessionary territory. Based on seasonally adjusted figures, 59% of surveyed firms expect the economic conditions to deteriorate, down…

Concerns As More Investors Choose Oil And Gas Projects

Blog
A report from the sustainable finance charity, Mindful Money, found that investment in the fossil fuel industry for the financial year ended in September 2022 has nearly doubled over that year and grown its core businesses by a substantial 80%. KiwiSaver and other retail investment funds were found to be…

ACT Policy on Contractors Comes Under Fire

Blog
ACT party leader, David Seymour, recently announced a proposal to have the Employment Relations Act amended so that independent contractors may not be regarded the same as employees and thus unable to challenge their employment status in court. This proposal comes months after the Employment Court made a judgement in…

New Zealand Slips into Technical Recession

Blog
Statistics NZ has confirmed that the economy contracted in the March quarter by 0.1%, making this the second consecutive quarter when GDP fell. This slim decline puts the country’s economy into a technical recession and reduces the likelihood that the central bank will need to hike interest rates further. This…