Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, migration movements have presented themselves as a puzzling aspect of New Zealand’s economic path forward. Migration has many effects on both the labour market and the wider economy, and will remain a key, but rapidly changing, factor moving ahead, so it’s worth paying attention to.

The New Zealand border has been closed since March, and with it, international tourism has all but vanished. International arrivals in July were 98% lower than a year ago, with only 3,521 arrivals. But even though there aren’t many new visitors arriving, there are quite a few still in New Zealand. Data published by StatsNZ estimates there to be somewhere between 90,000 and 140,000 international tourists currently residing across the country, which has implications for employment and support needs.

The past decade has seen infrastructure investment in our three waters heavily watered down. Compounding the issue, over recent years, New Zealand has had surging population growth. The lack of investment, coupled with intense demand growth, has been placing huge pressure on our pipes.

A whopping $138 billion of infrastructure spending is planned across New Zealand over the next 10 years, according to the latest Infometrics Infrastructure Pipeline Profile . Updated in early November, the Profile shows planned infrastructure spending is expected to be roughly $9b higher than our previous estimate from September 2018.

Logs and timber products account for the largest number of freight tonne-kms in New Zealand. In this article we talk about the outlook for log harvesting given government rule changes, and the effect these trends will have on road freight volumes.

By now it must feel like we are starting to beat a dead horse covering the shortcomings of the government’s tertiary education policies. However, every month new data continues to be released which strengthens our position even more. The current system appears to be slowly failing, and fees-free has done next to nothing to save it. If we want to improve tertiary education outcomes in New Zealand, the sector requires adjustments to the system beyond lowering the costs for students.

The tertiary education sector took a swift turn to the left in late 2017, as highlighted earlier this year with the implementation of the fees-free tertiary education policy. Half a year on, and what has the policy got to show for itself? A lot of money spent, not much change to student numbers, and a complete lack of targeting skills needs.

We have heard a lot recently about the struggles to meet labour demand in the regions . With a tight labour market and low unemployment rate, stories of employers being unable to find enough workers are becoming increasingly common. This article looks at immigration, one of the key ‘cogs’ to helping address skills shortages. More specifically, we look at how the proposed ‘Regional Skills Shortage List’ could provide the necessary workers throughout the country.

Sticking to their 100-day plan, the new government has removed fees for first-year tertiary students. The fees-free policy has generated a lot of excitement. But how well will this policy perform? This article examines the fees-free policy and outlines how the policy misses the mark in increasing access to tertiary education.