October 23, 2014
Pressure on for wage growth
The draw of higher wages in the Christchurch rebuild and Auckland could be putting pressure on Maori businesses in the provinces to increase what they pay staff.
The annual MYOB Business Monitor survey of small and medium business has found Maori firms are doing better on average, and twice as many say they intend to take on more staff over the coming year.
One in four also say they intend to increase what they pay their workers.
Scott Gardiner from MYOB says that could be due to the tight labour market, which is drawing people from the regions to Christchurch and Auckland.
"It puts quite a lot of pressure on the labour market and forces business operators to think about how they are going to retain staff so what that does is tends to put upward pressure on wages. Whilst there is still positivity in the outlook, what we are seeing is that businesses are feeling like they need to remain competitive in attracting staff and that tends to have an upward pressure on wage growth," he says.
Mr Gardiner says Maori businesses have been slow to embrace the internet as a business and marketing tool, and they could be missing out on many potential cusotmers.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH SCOTT GARDINER CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MjMzOTI=
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