Kerre Woodham: This one's for small business owners

The editorial this morning goes out to all the small and medium business people. Those of you who are starting the work week looking to earn your own keep, employ some New Zealanders, pay your taxes, and provide a product or service that people want or need. You don't want luxury yachts and private jets. You just want to work hard, be rewarded fairly, have people get out of your way, not be strangled by red tape. Seems a fairly reasonable state of being.

But as we know, small and medium enterprises are struggling and have been struggling for a few years now. And with an election looming, the EMA has released its election policy directives for 2026 And there are five of them: stability and certainty, wouldn't that be lovely, infrastructure and consenting, energy supply, employment legislation, and investment and innovation.

Amongst its directives, the EMA highlighted what it says is a big issue for businesses: the lack of work readiness among those graduating from educational institutions. The number of those not in employment, education, or training in the 18 to 24 age bracket continues to rise. They've come out of school, they've come out of training, and nobody will take them on, nobody's willing to take a risk. There's no doubt one of the drivers behind these numbers is a reluctance by employers to hire those new faces, says the EMA.

They're simply not ready for the workforce, lacking many basic skills and struggling with the simple disciplines of turning up, listening, and engaging in the workplace. So the finger's being pointed squarely at the young people and the schools and educational institutions that have trained them.

On Early Edition this morning, employment lawyer Max Whitehead disagreed. He said it's not the young people, it's the businesses lacking confidence to hire right now. Young people have always been young people. We've always been a bit useless when we start in our job unless you're a rare and wonderful unicorn, you don't know the job. You might have been trained, that's not the same thing as doing and being in the job, you don't really earn your keep until a little later. So it's no use pointing the finger at the young person.

Max Whitehead said it's the environment and the conditions at the moment that mean employers aren't willing to take a chance. And he also says that the corresponding lack of productivity is due to us being a nation of one or two men bands who lack the technological capability to be more productive.

New Zealand's now a nation of contractors. They're just like one or one man bands or just a couple of people of employees. And they are the people that are really the core of our country. And that's where I think EMA's missing out is focusing on that, getting them on their feet again. Maybe even if some of many of our contractors worked as cooperatives and actually purchased collectively some equipment that would make them actually more productive. That would be better ideas, but that needs to be incentivised.

Where do you think the issue is? If you are a one or two man band, you might have a few little young people working for you. You might have some people who've been with you for 50 or 60 years, but three, four, up to 10 employees.

There's been an ongoing issue with New Zealand's lack of productivity. It's not that we don't know how to work hard. People are working hard, but they're not being as productive as they could be. Max Whitehead says we lack the technological capability that a group of like minded SMEs could get together and buy the technology, the computer programs that might be expensive, the capital that might be expensive, that you couldn't do on your own but you might be able to do as a team. I just don't think it's the young people.

Everywhere I look, there are young people keeping shops, stores, businesses going over the long weekend. Without them, we'd be stuffed. And I bet there'd be a hell of a lot more young people in work if they could get it.

You certainly hear of young people going around and knocking on doors and wanting to work. if you're a small, medium business operator, owner operator, are you exactly where you want to be? If you're not, what is it going to take for you to be where you want to be, to be as productive and earning as much as you want to be?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Mornings podcast from News
Talks HEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
The editorial this morning goes out to all the small
and medium business people, those of you who are starting
the work week looking to earn your own keep, employ
some New Zealanders, pay your taxes, and provide a product
or service that people want or need. You don't want

(00:32):
luxury yachts and private jets. You just want to work hard,
be rewarded fairly, have people get out of your way,
not be strangled by red tape. Seems a fairly reasonable
state of being. But as we know, small and medium
enterprises are struggling and have been struggling for a few
years now, and with an election looming, the EMA has

(00:56):
released its election policy directives for twenty twenty six. Are
There are five of them. Stability and Certainty, wouldn't that be?
Infrastructure and consenting energy supply, Employment, Legislation and Investment and Innovation.

(01:17):
Among its directives, the MAA highlighted what it says is
a big issue for businesses the lack of work readiness
among those graduating from educational institutions. The number of those
not an employment education or training in the eighteen to
twenty four age bracket continues to rise. So they've come

(01:38):
out of school, they've come out of training, and nobody
will take them on. Nobody's willing to take a risk.
There's no doubt one of the drivers behind these numbers
is a reluctance by employers to hire those new faces.
Says the EMA, they're simply not ready for the workforce,

(01:58):
lacking many basic skills and struggling with the simple disciplines
of turning up, listening and engaging in the work place.
So the finger's been pointed squarely at the young people
and the schools and educational institutions that have trained them.
On early edition this morning, employment lawyer Max Whitehead disagreed.

(02:20):
He said, it's not the young people, it's the business's
lacking confidence to hire right now. Young people have always
been young people. We've always been a bit useless when
we start in our job. Unless you're a rare and
wonderful unicorn, you don't know the job. You might have
been trained, that's not the same thing as doing and
being in the job, so you don't really earn your

(02:43):
keep untill a little bit later. So it's no use
pointing the finger at the young people. Max Whitehead said
it's the environment and the conditions at the moment that
mean employers aren't willing to take a chance, and he
also says that the corresponding lack of productivity is due
to us being a nation of one or two men

(03:03):
bands lack the technological capability to be more productive.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
New Zealand's now a nation of contractors. They're just like
one on one man bands or just a couple of
people with employees, and they are the people that are
really the core of our country. And that's where I
think EMA is missing out is focusing on that, getting
them on their feet again. Maybe even if many of

(03:30):
our contractors worked as cooperatives and actually purchased collectively some
equipment that would make them actually more productive, that would
be better ideas, but that needs to be incentivized.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Okay, So where do you think the issue is? If
you are a one or two man band, you might
have a few little young people working for you. You
might have some people have been with you for fifty
or sixty years, but three four up to ten employee ease.

(04:04):
There's been an ongoing issue with New Zealand's lack of productivity.
It's not that we don't know how to work hard.
People are working hard, but they're not being as productive
as they could be. Max Whitehad says, we lack the
technological capability that a group of like minded smeeths could
get together and buy the technology, the technology and the

(04:33):
kind of computer systems that would make your business more
productive if you're an accountant, if you're an architect, with
your operating on your own. The EMA says, it's young
people coming out and not having the skills and ability
to be able to convince employers to take them on. Yet,

(04:57):
over the long weekend, I saw so many young people,
school age kids working over the weekend on a weekend off.
They were personable, they were chatty, they were welcoming, they
were hard working. These were not kids who hold themselves
up in bedrooms and never came out till they were

(05:18):
twenty two. You know. They were young, bright, gorgeous kids
who were happy to give up a holiday weekend to
earn a bit of extra dosh, saving towards something they wanted.
And I see that locally as well. In our local
New World. You've got gorgeous young people working there while
also studying, while also doing well at school. While also

(05:41):
training for sports teams. You've got young people working at
farmers in the malls of a weekend. I don't think
it's young people either. I think it's either and I'd
be really interested to hear if you were one of
these who was a small business owner. It's either that

(06:02):
New Zealand Boat Batch BMW mentality where you work until
you've got enough to have a nice life. And I've
heard it before from business owners over the years. I
don't want to work harder. I've got exactly what I
need to have a nice life. I could be bigger,
my business could grow, I could take on more staff.

(06:22):
I don't want to. I don't want to be more
productive because that's just being measured in economic terms. I
am really productive as a good husband and a good
wife and a good parent, and I get to go
on the school camps and I couldn't do that if
I was running a big business. So this is to

(06:44):
all the small and medium business enterprises out there. Is
it the fact that you're working just as much as
you want to, you have no desire to work any
harder or take on any more employees. Is it the
fact that you need to band together to get the technology,

(07:05):
the computer proms that might be expensive, the capital that
might be expensive that you couldn't do on your own,
but you might be able to do as a team.
I just don't think it's the young people. Everywhere I
look there are young people keeping shops, stores, businesses, going

(07:25):
over the long weekend. Without them, we'd be stuffed. And
I bet there'd be a hell of a lot more
young people in work if they could get it. You
certainly hear of young people going around and knocking on
doors and wanting to work. So, if you're a small
medium business operator, owner, operator, are you exactly where you

(07:45):
want to be? If you're not, what is it going
to take for you to be where you want to be,
to be as productive and earning as much as you
want to be.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
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