Is the Covid pandemic and our collective responses to it best framed as health vs.

What is bad luck? Bad luck is spilling spaghetti sauce down your shirt right before an important mee...

I’m OK with wearing a CovidCard. But are you? There’s no point me doing it alone.

New Zealand’s COVID Tracer app is “on track to achieve nothing”, according to Sam Morgan.

New COVID-19 cases are soaring in the US. I would naturally expect the number of deaths to be soarin...

Much of the public debate about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has focused on the extent to w...

Zero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an...

Elimination. Border incursions. An outbreak. A lockdown, which takes us back to elimination.

Alert level 1! Like you no doubt, I am breathing a sigh of relief. But no one can guarantee that New...

As the metaphorical ink was drying on the Commission’s technological change and the future of work f...

One of the key findings from the Commission’s recent Technological change and the future of work inq...

In normal times, New Zealand’s labour market works well. Compared to many other countries, unemploym...

It is said that ‘good things happen to those who hustle’.

One of the big goals of some urban policymakers in recent years has been achieving greater populatio...

Last October, New Zealand communities elected their local government councillors and mayors.

Eighty-four percent of New Zealanders were concerned about the chances that they or someone close to...

Are humans destined to be over-prepared for yesterday’s existential threat, and under-prepared for t...

Governments around the world have restricted the activities of their citizens in the fight against C...

Lockdown hasn’t seemed too bad.

The die is cast.

In times of crisis, it is said, speed is of the essence. And the dramatic consequences of the COVID-...

“Shut the borders” is a natural first reaction to an external threat.

New Zealanders have a lot of experience with islands and unwanted organisms – keeping them away, lea...

A peculiar fixation of economists is looking for the unseen or unnoticed effects of an event.

As we (hopefully) exit from the constraints imposed to control the COVID-19 virus, it’s worth thinki...

Over the last few weeks’, you might have felt like the country was making its way along a ridge betw...

Let me introduce you to RPE, a “quick & dirty” estimate of the effective reproduction number of COVI...

Like us, most of you will be at home, keeping to your bubbles, isolating from others and maybe worki...

To succeed in an unpredictable and changing world, adaptability is the key. Let’s be chameleons. Tec...

This is our penultimate post on the FutureworkNZ blog. We’ve really enjoyed the process of testing o...

In my last post, I talked about how the rough and tumble of reallocation led to productivity growth,...

In our first four draft reports, the Commission focused on questions like:

Is technology progress a...

Our technological change and the future of work inquiry has turned the hose on some burning platform...

The fact you’re reading this article online is a good indicator you are “digitally included” - meani...

… auf Wiedersehen, adieu! Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu. . .

In my final year of school, I completely dropped maths and science – resulting in a conference with ...

Do you remember your first day at school? The education I received was for a very different world th...

The first week back at work after the new year is the most popular time to look for a new job.

I’ve got some bad news about Santa Claus. The North Pole may be far, but it’s not too far to avoid t...

You’d think that with low unemployment and ever-improving technology for distance education, the pro...

I’m sure you’ve heard some version of this popular prediction – about two-thirds of children enterin...

New research by Dave Maré from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research for the Commission investiga...

Low business investment is a problem for tech adoption.  Interest rates don’t provide a convincing e...

Crazily low interest rates but NZ businesses are not investing. Why not?

It’s an important question...

Both my parents are pretty handy – and they seem to have the right tools for most jobs in the garage...

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to micro-credentials, those bits of bite-sized learning c...

If you’re at risk of losing your job, your best protection is to have lots of other good job opportu...

I’ve been made redundant. There, I’ve said it. Admittedly, it happened a long time ago. In 1986 I st...

The Commission’s second draft report Employment, labour markets and income, for the Technological ch...

Redundancy pay is a rather primitive form of insurance or “income smoothing”. It’s an old technology...

Redundancy (or severance) pay is an old technology to protect people from the risks and costs of job...

‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics’.

Trans-Tasman migration and arrivals from other countries have bigger effects on New Zealand’s popula...

There’s a great new ad campaign running for Trade Me at the moment based on the slogan, ‘there’s som...

Two new Productivity Commission reports tell us that the New Zealand labour market is characterised ...

When I was applying for jobs in London, an amazing place – although my economist colleagues just cal...

The success of an Active Labour Market Policy (ALMP) will depend a lot on the type of programme and ...

48% growth in employment over 40 years! This is a remarkable success story for New Zealand’s labour ...

Based on OECD comparisons, New Zealand’s overall spending on Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs) a...

Over the last 40 years, New Zealanders – and people in other countries – have experienced big change...

In Berkeley, California last week I met the Kiwibots – a tribe of 4-wheeled robots about the size of...

If you’ve read anything about technological change and the future of work – or even if you’ve just G...

Answer: When it’s a childcare subsidy available to other low-income households.

Young people have a strong belief that technology will shape their future but what types of skills a...

I love the bold and colourful marae at Te Papa Tongarewa. The space is made up of a marae ātea (plac...

Fears of social problems accompany any new technology. Not just new problems, as technology can re-i...

What do secondary school students think work will look like in 2030? Flying cars, genetically modifi...

This is a slide from Professor Richard Baldwin’s presentation about his new book The Globotics Uphea...

Is this the reason why New Zealand doesn’t feature more prominently on global business and investmen...

Does gig work on digital platforms have a gender pay gap? The more flexible work options enabled by ...

Have you ever done a MOOC? After completing four separate degrees and ten years at university, you w...

There are two “expert” messages about the impact of the digital revolution on work that are hard to ...

The first of the Productivity Commission’s reports on technological change and the future of work is...

As a small country that’s far away from most of the world, it’s not surprising that many have worrie...

Many, many things affect whether a firm will adopt a technology, and whether this adoption will be s...

Can you ‘infect’ someone with digital skills? It may sound like an odd question but let me explain…
...

Forty-five percent of people who don’t use the internet say they have no interest in the internet or...

Why is the Productivity Commission interested in the digital divide? Our terms of reference ask us h...

A decline in the labour income share (LIS) is not definitive evidence of capital replacing human lab...

There’s a long lag between invention and any labour market effects from the mass adoption of technol...

Freezing 500 tonnes of vegetables a day, most days of the year. That makes for a significant manufac...

As the opening chords of Country Calendar play, feel-good nostalgia for rural New Zealand washes ove...

Technological progress need not eliminate jobs; automation can allow new and expanded worthwhile act...

How well does NZ support people who face job loss?  

I feel fortunate. In my working life – 3 ½ yea...

Online matchmaking has radically changed the way people search for love.

Accelerating or decelerating? Just about all the media commentary about the future of work says that...

It’s always a big day for the Productivity Commission when the Government announces its response to ...

Robots are going to take our jobs, right?  Well, maybe. The available evidence provides conflicting ...

Denmark is a lot like us. A small country and with an open economy and lots of fiords and sounds.

The 50th anniversary of the moon landings got me thinking about 1960s tech and work.

Skills scarcity is great. At least when it’s your skills in demand.

Training is an investment in “embodied human capital” – assets stored in workers’ heads.

New tech. A traditional local industry.

The nice thing about forecasts is that you have so many to choose from.

The converging roles of men and women are among the grandest advances in society and the economy in ...

There’s an old joke about an economist searching for their keys under a street lamp.

Why don’t people move as often as economists expect? 

Some regions in New Zealand have much higher ...

The right job in the wrong place. For many, that’s the reality of job search in New Zealand’s less p...

Regardless of the technology hype, we’re in a productivity slump worldwide.

“Machines take jobs” cry the headlines. A journalist friend once said the media only publish two sto...

Can automation tech keep improving at the current rate? 

First, how good is today’s AI-enabled soft...

Biotech. Nanotech. Cleantech. Gene tech. Cloud computing tech. Successive waves of technological cha...

I only know one economist joke. A plane carrying economists plummets towards the ground after its en...

Flexible land-use planning complements a complex, dynamic and unpredictable employment environment. ...

career (v) move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way.

Can New Zealand choose its own future of work? The submissions and feedback the inquiry has received...

Technology is an irresistible force, emerging from inventors and relentlessly changing the nature of...

Prices affect firm decisions. Government policy affects prices, and in doing so indirectly affects t...

Necessity is the mother of invention if camping without tent pegs, according to Kinley Salmon in his...

GirlBoss NZ urges us to take a strong gender perspective in our inquiry.

Are fast rates of re-employment always a good thing? New Zealand’s incidence of long-term unemployme...

It is hard to find a discussion about the future of work without some reference to the emergence of ...

Many people worry about the impact of new and emerging technologies like robots and artificial intel...

Predicting technology is the first step towards predicting the labour market impacts of technology. ...

The US–China trade war is in the news again.

This graphic caught my eye. It accompanies the article Robots and Us in today’s Otago Daily Times.