Now that summer is finally here, tourists will be happy that they’re seeing New Zealand at its best. Happy tourists mean a continued boom for tourism and this affects numerous industries.
Benje Patterson looks at recent growth in regional aviation, as well as pointing the spotlight on Queenstown, which is humming with activity. He uses Infometrics’ Regional Profile to examine the growth in jobs in this region.
Spreading our gaze over the rest of the country, our latest economic forecasts have been released which include some bold predictions for the New Zealand economy and construction sector.
And finally, we focus in on Te Awamutu where our one of our economists, Nigel Pinkerton, has chosen to settle. We chat to Nigel about his work and interests in our regular interview feature.
Queenstown-Lakes District was New Zealand’s top performing territorial authority during 2016, with employment expanding by a stonking 10.3% over the March 2016 year. This growth was almost four times the 2.7% rate of employment expansion seen nationally, and well above the 5.9% employment growth recorded by second-placed Western Bay of Plenty District. This article reveals more about Queenstown’s stellar year, along with a sneak peek at Infometrics’ 2016 Regional Economic Profile (official release: February 28) to see which other places also had rapid employment growth.
2016 was a ground-breaking year for domestic aviation, with competition heating up following the launching of Jetstar regional services. Growth was particularly strong in Jetstar’s four new regional destinations – Napier, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, and Nelson. The big question is where will Jetstar fly to next?
The New Zealand economy has entered 2017 in good spirits, with Infometrics’ latest forecast predicting GDP growth over the three years to June 2019 will average more than 3.0%pa. However, Infometrics Chief Forecaster Gareth Kiernan believes the solid outlook for growth masks several risks that hang over the economy.
This month we continue our series of economist interviews with a chat to Nigel Pinkerton. With a background in economics, Nigel now concentrates on developing technologically innovative ways of delivering our services to clients. Nigel is another of our staff who has chosen to live and work away from our main offices in Wellington, and when he is not developing our web-interfaces or building our data systems, he can be found in a pair of gumboots, farming his lifestyle block in Te Awamutu.
