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Younger people may have time to return to saving, paying down debt and investing after being made redundant, but older workers have a tighter timeframe to work with. File photo. Photo: 123rf Katie, 60, has just been told her job is likely to go. "We are still in the consultation and submission phase," she says, "which is an absolute joke because they decided this months ago and even effected a good bait-and-switch move to shift everyone into a new team and now said the team is too big and unwieldy and needs to get trimmed." She said she felt the decision to axe her role was ageist because she is the oldest person in the team. "I'm going to ask for all material concerning the disestablishment of my post - because three of us are being let go and we are the hardest-working members of the ...

Marlborough, Invercargill and Queenstown were the only main centres to record modest growth this quarter. File photo. Photo: Unsplash / Tom Rumble Residential property values continue to fall with only three urban areas recording positive growth, according to the latest QV House Price Index. The index shows national values fell an average of 1.9 percent in the three months ended in July, which was a larger rate of decline than the 0.9 percent drop in the June quarter. The average home value was $909,517, which was 2.3 percent up on the same time last year and 0.5 percent up from the start of the year. "Residential property values are slowly shrinking across all price brackets, in almost every part of Aotearoa," QV operations manager James Wilson said. "This is to be expected given the c...

Local businesses are seeing less demand for their services and an increase in projects being put on hold or cancelled altogether. Photo: 123RF A new survey shows one in five builders are working at less than 50 percent capacity, as work dries, with the majority expecting things to get worse over the next year. The EBOSS Builder Sentiment Report surveyed 650 local business, with 70 percent believing industry conditions would continue to decline over the next 12 months. About the same number were seeing less demand for their services, with an increase in projects being put on hold or cancelled altogether and the smaller business and sole operators taking the biggest hit. Managing Director of building consultancy, EBOSS, Matthew Duder told Checkpoint the report confirmed what he had seen i...

All Blacks game against Argentina at Sky Stadium in Wellington on 10 August. Photo: Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz A soft turnout for Saturday's All Blacks game against Argentina is probably a reflection of the state of Wellington's economy, an economist says. There was a 25,000 crowd for the game, which was the lowest level recorded in Wellington since the All Blacks took on Fiji in 2002 at Westpac Trust Stadium, or since they played Argentina at Athletic Park in 1997, Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen said. He said the 72 percent capacity was also the worst since the second test versus Australia in August 2021, which was moved last minute from Perth because of the trans-Tasman bubble closing. "For that game, turnout was only 50 percent of capacity, given the very limited lead-i...