NZ workers half as productive as those in US!

[firefighter]

You went to the Warehouse and expected to receive good service?

Sounds like that's your problem right there.

No, well, erm, maybe not good service but nothing as bad as a blatant scoff for asking for help and then a simple abrupt "na". It's just one example of many.

[terbang]

Tis just a couple of quiet islands in the Pacific. Nothing more.

[Forest]

No, well, erm, maybe not good service but nothing as bad as a blatant scoff for asking for help and then a simple abrupt "na". It's just one example of many.

I was just having a gentle dig.

Even the Warehouse shouldn't treat it's customers with contempt.

[Swoop]

...that apart from a lack of support of the workforce, we are ahead of them. As in demarcation of jobs is still alive and well in USA, and specialisation is the way they run businesses productively.

"Demarcation of jobs". Perhaps their workforce still retains the skills to do multiple things, making this demarcation quite necessary.
An example: NZ Carpenters.
Once upon a time they would do everything on a building site, from digging and laying the foundations, all the way to putting the roof on. Everything apart from the wiring and plumbing, of course.
Nowadays they hire teams to do foundations, roofing, gib-stopping, finishing, etc, etc.

NZ has simply "devolved" and "un-skilled" certain areas of the workforce.

[JATZ]

Maybe thats one of the reasons there is so many Asians/Indians/Vanuatuans(?) involved in seasonal work around the district.
Young Kiwi fella/fellaress is slackin off having a smoke/sittin down doing nothing when the foreign labour is getting on with the job, probly not demanding more pay than they're worth too.
BTW. Im not saying it's a good thing to have imported labour

BTW II. Yet another gem of a top tip from swoop

[Toaster]

Feels like I'm working my arse off and getting nowhere!

You been doing poll-dancing again mate??!!

[Robert Taylor]

N.Z is quickly losing it's rep as having hard working people....

6 October 2008
The productivity of workers in New Zealand has slumped to almost half that of workers in the United States.

A Department of Labour report out today shows productivity at the workplace is among the lowest in the OECD. The figures show New Zealand's GDP per hour worked has fallen sharply to just 56 percent of what workers in US produce.

Nearly all other OECD nations fare considerably better, with most other countries report their productivity is rising. The report says New Zealand is now in the unenviable position of having a large labour productivity gap.

It suggests one of the causes may be having less skilled people taking up lower paid jobs.


http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/articl...104&fm=psp,tst

hmmmm, yes I totally belive this after seeing the lengths staff go through to help you on my recent visit to the states, especially compared to the service you find here. last weekend I asked a big Island woman at the warehouse a question about something in her section, she scoffed as she raised herself from her seat and looked for an eighth of a second on the computer screen, said na! in a pissed off way and sat down....I notice this sort of thing a lot since my return and it is really bad, I feel like I OWE a shopkeeper something now if they do their job well......and do that little bit extra.

While we have a ''Government'' that has removed incentive to work hard and get ahead do you really wonder at it...........

[The Stranger:Me]

An example: NZ Carpenters.
Once upon a time they would do everything on a building site, from digging and laying the foundations, all the way to putting the roof on. Everything apart from the wiring and plumbing, of course.
Nowadays they hire teams to do foundations, roofing, gib-stopping, finishing, etc, etc.

NZ has simply "devolved" and "un-skilled" certain areas of the workforce.

A pet peeve of mine.
As a carpenter and foreman for 12 years I saw exactly what you are talking about. I hated that change with a vengeance and resisted it at every turn. However, when times were/are tight (post share market crash etc) you had to adapt or die and I (reluctantly) have to admit, it was more profitable. Therein lies the rub, more profit=more productivity.

[Headbanger]

A pet peeve of mine.
As a carpenter and foreman for 12 years I saw exactly what you are talking about. I hated that change with a vengeance and resisted it at every turn. However, when times were/are tight (post share market crash etc) you had to adapt or die and I (reluctantly) have to admit, it was more profitable. Therein lies the rub, more profit=more productivity.

and on that note.

A mate of mine, qualified builder, a few years in the trade, all he knew how to do was frame up partitions for shops. Once the company he worked for downsized he had to leave the trade. Figured he wasn't going to retrain to do the same job, Now a firefighter....IN AUSSIE

The most recent large building site I spent a few months on the Foreman happened to be a super-skilled and experienced builder, spent his entire life building, yet he wasn't allowed to make any decisions off the cuff, anything and everything had to be referred to the engineers/architects, even a bit of flashing from where we removed the flagpole. The bizarre thing is they either never replied or replied with non-sense, and blatantly refused to visit the site to see just why the hell their bullshit made no sense. Project was months behind, over-run by millions. taxpayers money all of it.

Lastly, I make training available to all my crew,on-site and in training facilities, I push for more of it to be available, I provide money to get it done, incentives in the way of higher wages, Tell them the more skills they acquire the more valuable they are to the company we work for plus for the next company they work for .they don't give a shit, Just want to get through the day, get paid, buy some booze. Then get busted driving and we have an entire roster of unskilled people with little motivation and no way of getting to work.

[Naki Rat]

We haven't so much as lost our work ethic, It just moved to Aussie.....

A lot of truth in that comment I think.

During the construction of the Motunui synthetic petrol plant here in the 'Naki in the early 1980s the main contractor, Bechtel, arrived expecting a productivity factor for Kiwis of 1.18 (i.e. 1.18 Kiwis = 1 US worker). As construction progressed they found that the inverse was nearer the mark with Kiwis being more productive than their US equivalent. What a turn around if the 50% productivity claim is now true.

I would guess that a large proportion of the skilled tradesmen in particular that worked their way through the Think Big projects of that era are now scattered throughout Australia, SE Asia, Middle East, etc.

Skilled tradesmen, university graduates or just plain hardworking ambitious Kiwis - NZ's most valuable export

[alanzs]

When my wife came to the US, she got essentially the same job she had here but was paid about 50% more. When we returned here, she took essentially the same job and was, you guessed it, paid about 50% less.

How can we not expect the best and brightest to go elsewhere to expand their personal horizons? NZ needs to turn itself into a high wage earning country if they want to compete effectively in a world economy. How to do this, I don't know.

[Winston001]

Does their measure of loss of productivity really translate at all into a loss of work ethics?

One person working in a gold mine may be more productive (according to their measure) than one preson working in a banana mine, though they may well be working just as hard and have similar work ethics.

Good point. Just how do we reliably measure productivity? We'd need an economist to explain.

However we don't need an economist to point to the obvious indicator - our currency. In 1973 the NZ$ bought roughly one $US. By 1985 NZ$ bought US$0.39.

Recently we reached US$0.82 but today its about US$0.62. At a glance this looks like Kiwi production has jumped recently but in fact the US$ is on its way down, and is only being temporarily supported by a flight to safe currencies.

Meaningful production is the key. High value smart stuff.

What I'd like to see is our members of parliament talking about this sort of thing continuously and openly exploring the options. Instead they trade cheap shots about John Keys shares, Huluns paintings, Dover's urgent need to relieve himself..... None of that has anything to do with leading a nation and focusing the community on the future.

[vifferman]

idiot, bananas grow on trees not in dirty mines!

Idiot, bananas don't grow on trees.
It may look like a tree, but it is in fact just a tall herb, without the woody stem, bark, etc that a tree has.

[firefighter]

What I'd like to see is our members of parliament talking about this sort of thing continuously and openly exploring the options. Instead they trade cheap shots about John Keys shares, Huluns paintings, Dover's urgent need to relieve himself..... None of that has anything to do with leading a nation and focusing the community on the future.

What? How dare you expect polititians to spend their time thinking of the nation instead of aguing over pointless shit!

Imagine if you carried on the way politicians do at your job, I know i'd be retired very very quickly! ie. get the fuck out!
I remember watching a story on the politicians sleeping during the law making process in cabinet, and it was excused even by the media because of how tedious it all is.......are you fucken joking? We can't expect them on their salary of 100+k to stay awake at work!

I do strongly believe that if politicains put half the energy they put into intruding into each others personal lives as they did into the countrys real interests then we'd be a much stronger nation.

[Finn]

pay peanuts, get monkeys!!!

Or in NZ's case, you only need to pay monkey's peanuts.