Nearly two thirds of workers would switch jobs for a higher salary
Only 16 percent of workers believed pay was more important than job security in the current labour market, the survey showed.
Photo:
123rf
More than 60 percent of office workers surveyed said they would switch jobs for a higher salary, with a pay rise of at least 20 percent being the most common incentive.
The recruitment company Robert Half commissioned the online survey of 500 full-time New Zealand workers in finance, accounting, IT and technology.
It found many believed they are underpaid by 10 to 20 percent.
Sixty-one percent of workers would switch jobs for a higher salary.
Robert Half New Zealand director Ronil Singh told
Morning Report
at least a 20 percent increase was the most common pay rise that would compel workers to leave.
"What the survey shows is that's probably the percentage term that people would probably look for to jump ship, however that's not accurate for all.
"Also we've got to take into consideration are businesses actually giving 20 percent increases for the same job just because you're going to move roles? The short answer is no.
"Whilst 20 percent is the average increase that people make a move for, it's still a high ask for a lot of businesses - so it's not realistic to achieve this in this current economic climate."
The survey showed that only 16 percent of workers believed pay was more important than job security in the current labour market.
Singh said that showed that even though money was a powerful influence, many employees were weighing financial wishes against the need for job security.
Employees needed to understand that a 20 percent increase would also lead to a change in expectations and more responsibility, he said.
The research showed many workers felt their pay did not reflect their worth which could be due to stagnant wages despite increased responsibilities or a perception that their compensation lagged behind industry standards for similar roles, he said.
The recruitment company was getting a mix of opinions about how happy staff were in their current jobs, he said.
"There are some companies that have gone through a lot of change in the last 12 or 18 months and that's causing a little bit of uncertainty for their workforce and there are some that are actually very happy in their roles, so it's actually a mixed bag."
The survey showed that about 40 percent of respondents felt "quite valued in terms of their current roles", he said.
But the survey suggested that 60 percent of employees still felt undervalued and that an increased salary would better reflect what they brought to their role and the work required of them, he said.
"I think the cost of living pressure there's a perception of feeling undervalued, and there's also a focus on financial security for people as well that's causing them to feel that way."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter
curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
35 minutes ago
- RNZ News
The David Seymour ‘bots' debate: Do online submission tools help or hurt democracy?
ACT Party leader David Seyour in studio for an interview on season 3 of 30 with Guyon Espiner. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly A discussion document on a Regulatory Standards Bill is not, on the face of it, the sort of thing that might have been expected to prompt 23,000 responses. But in an age of digital democracy, the Ministry for Regulation was probably expecting it. The bill , led by ACT Party leader David Seymour, is controversial. It sparked a response from activists, who used online tools to help people make their opposition known. Of the 23,000 submissions, 88 percent were opposed. Seymour this week told RNZ's 30 with Guyon Espiner , that figure reflected "bots" generating "fake" submissions. He did not provide evidence for the claim and later explained he wasn't referring to literal bots but to "online campaigns" that generate "non-representative samples" that don't reflect public opinion. Seymour has previous experience with this sort of thing. The Treaty Principles Bill got a record 300,000 submissions when it was considered by the Justice Committee earlier this year. Is Seymour right to have raised concerns about how these tools are affecting public debate? Or are they a boon for democracy? Submission tools are commonly used by advocacy groups to mobilise public input during the select committee process. The online tools often offer a template for users to fill out or suggested wording that can be edited or submitted as is. Each submission is usually still sent by the individual. Taxpayers' Union spokesperson Jordan Williams said submitting to Parliament used to be "pretty difficult". "You'd have to write a letter and things like that. What the tools do allow is for people to very easily and quickly make their voice heard." The tools being used now are part of sophisticated marketing campaigns, Williams said. "You do get pressure groups that take particular interest, and it blows out the numbers, but that doesn't mean that officials should be ruling them out or refusing to engage or read submissions." The Taxpayers' Union has created submission tools in the past, but Williams said he isn't in favour of tools that don't allow the submitter to alter the submission. He has encouraged supporters to change the contents of the submission to ensure it is original. "The ones that we are pretty suspicious of is when it doesn't allow the end user to actually change the submission, and in effect, it just operates like a petition, which I don't think quite has the same democratic value." Clerk of the House of Representatives David Wilson said campaigns that see thousands of similar submissions on proposed legislation are not new, they've just taken a different form. "It's happened for many, many years. It used to be photocopied forms. Now, often it's things online that you can fill out. And there's nothing wrong with doing that. It's a legitimate submission." However, Wilson pointed out that identical responses would likely be grouped by the select committee and treated as one submission. "The purpose of the select committee calling for public submissions is so that the members of the committee can better inform themselves about the issues. They're looking at the bill, thinking about whether it needs to be amended or whether it should pass. So if they receive the same view from hundreds of people, they will know that." But that isn't to say those submissions are discredited, Wilson said. "For example, the committee staff would say, you've received 10,000 submissions that all look exactly like this. So members will know how many there were and what they said. But I don't know if there's any point in all of the members individually reading the same thing that many times." Jordan Williams co-founded the Taxpayers' Union in 2013 with David Farrar. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly But Williams said there were risks in treating similar submissions created using 'tools' as one submission. "Treating those ones as if they are all identical is not just wrong, it's actually undemocratic," he said. "It's been really concerning that, under the current parliament, they are trying to carte blanche, reject people's submissions, because a lot of them are similar." AI should be used to analyse submissions and identify the unique points. "Because if people are going to take the time and make a submission to Parliament, at the very least, the officials should be reading them or having them summarised," Williams said. Labour MP Duncan Webb is a member of the Justice Committee and sat in on oral submissions for the Treaty Principles Bill. He said he attempted to read as many submissions as possible. "When you get a stock submission, which is a body of text that is identical and it's just been clicked and dragged, then you don't have to read them all, because you just know that there are 500 people who think exactly the same thing," he said. "But when you get 500 postcards, which each have three handwritten sentences on them, they may all have the same theme, they may all be from a particular organisation, but the individual thoughts that have been individually expressed. So you can't kind of categorise it as just one size fits all. You've got to take every single case on its merits." Webb said he takes the select committee process very seriously. "The thing that struck me was, sure, you read a lot [of submissions] which are repetitive, but then all of a sudden you come across one which actually changes the way you think about the problem in front of you. "To kind of dismiss that as just one of a pile from this organisation is actually denying someone who's got an important point to make, their voice in the democratic process." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
6 hours ago
- RNZ News
Warning to illegal rubbish dumpers: new rules could lead to crack-down
Clearing up the worst dumping spots costs Heretaunga-Hastings ratepayers more than $100,000 a year, councillor Wendy Schollum says, and she wants councils to have better enforcement options (file photo). Photo: Supplied/ Hastings District Council Fly-tippers illegally dumping rubbish could be in for a shock if new laws are passed making it easier for councils to prosecute them, and to crack down on them using clues such as old car registration plates or names on letters or mail. The government has proposed revisions to the Waste Minimisation Act 2008 (WMA) and the Litter Act 1979 (the Litter Act), including giving authorities more flexibility to help them crack down on illegal dumping. Hastings District Councillor Wendy Schollum told Checkpoint that illegal rubbish dumping was an ongoing issue in the community, but the council was currently limited in its ability to do much about the fly-tippers. Annually, picking up litter in Heretaunga-Hastings cost well over $100,000, council staff had told her - "and that was only in hot-spot areas, so that wasn't even across the whole district," she said. Wendy Schollum Photo: Supplied via LDR "We estimated that if we were to try and clear every space of litter, it would cost in excess of over $1 million." The types of rubbish being dumped in the area varied from everday litter, to households worth of rubbish, including whiteware and mattresses. "It's actually quite outrageous some of the stuff that gets left," Schollum said. Hastings District Council was not alone in the problem, but critics say it is difficult to hold offenders to account under laws written in the 70s, with offenders basically needing to be caught in the act. "When I first was elected onto council back in 2017, right from then until now, littering and dumping has been the number one issue with ratepayers in our area," Schollum said. But at the moment, even with overwhelming evidence, the council often could not do much in response, she said: "Unless someone was literally standing there watching the person do it at the time, under the current law, there is so little we can do." A consultation document on the law changes also noted the problem: The current Waste Minimisation Act "provides limited CME [compliance, monitoring and enforcement] powers. Prosecution is the main means to address non-compliance, with maximum fines of $100,00 for all main offences at a central government level, [and] $20,000 for a breach of bylaws." But in effect that meant: "For ... offences [other than non-payment of the levy] prosecution through the courts is the only enforcement option, which is limiting because prosecution can be a disproportionate regulatory response to non-compliance, [and] if non-compliance falls below the prosecution threshold, no consequences can arise from breach of the WMA." Schollum said the current loophole leaves ratepayers footing the bill for fly-tippers. "In an area like Heretaunga, where they've been hit by Cyclone Gabrielle and we're reeling from recovery costs, our ratepayers don't need to be paying for what is frankly laziness." She believes the problem was caused by bad attitudes, rather than issues affording dump fees. "Often people contact me and say, 'well, if you reduce the dump fees, people wouldn't litter'. The reality is that if that were the case, we would see in areas where it's cheaper or free to dispose of rubbish that there would be no illegal dumping at all and that's just not the case. "The evidence overwhelmingly points to the fact it's about attitudes." Under the proposed changes, evidence like addressed mail left in dumped rubbish could be used to identify dumpers and fine them. (file photo) Photo: Supplied/Gisborne District Council The consultation document also suggests a new tiered compliance system, with different penalties for different levels of offence. This could range from small infringements where a warning might be suitable, for example for "illegal plastic bag use" or minor littering, through to mid-range offences where the most severe consequences were not suitable, up to the most severe consequences, for behaviour like "high-harm illegal dumping". Schollum said tiered enforcement options would be helpful to the council: "If someone threw their takeaway container out their car window, they're not going to be met with the same sort of penalty as someone who dumps a whole house ... worth of rubbish [in] the community area. "This is about councils finally being able to pursue repeat offenders and stop communities having to pay for the cost of laziness, but only with reasonable evidence." The revisions could also distinguish between individuals and larger entities committing offences, and define offences and maximum fees, penalties and prosecution. Schollum said despite enthusiasm from the community to help in clearing the litter, other frustrating barriers have stood in the way. "Some of the worst hit areas are actually NZTA managed lands, and at the moment, because of health and safety rules with NZTA we can't even arrange community clean ups on their land." Even though these set backs have limited community clean ups, Schollum said it should not be the community's job in the first place. "We shouldn't be having to look at the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff solution, which is the community spending their money and time trying to clean up other people's mess. We need to stop the dumping and the littering in the first place." Other changes in the proposal include adjusting how local councils are allocated funds to dispose of waste, widening what councils can use the funds for and clarifying who is responsible for what. Consultation for the potential law changes closed on 1 June, the Ministry for the Environment website said. Next, the submissions will be considered, and from there Cabinet could decide to create an amendment bill, which could be introduced to Parliament to pursue changing the existing law. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
9 hours ago
- RNZ News
Hong Kong appoints New Zealand judge to top court
Sir William Young. Photo: NZ Government A New Zealand judge has been appointed as a justice of Hong Kong's top court, after a years-long exodus of overseas jurists following Beijing's imposition of a sweeping security law on the finance hub. Hong Kong's lawmakers on Wednesday approved the appointment of Sir William Young, 73, to join five other overseas non-permanent justices from the UK and Australia. Hong Kong is a common law jurisdiction separate from mainland China and invites overseas judges to hear cases at its Court of Final Appeal. Their presence has been seen as a bellwether for the rule of law since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997. Beijing passed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, following huge and often violent pro-democracy protests in the Chinese city the year before. Since then, several overseas judges have quit the Court of Final Appeal without finishing their terms, while others have not renewed their appointments. The lineup of overseas judges has gone from 15 at its peak down to five, not including Young. The newly appointed justice, who retired from his role as a New Zealand Supreme Court judge in April 2022, is expected to start in Hong Kong this month. Hong Kong leader John Lee accepted a recommendation to appoint Young in May and praised him as "a judge of eminent standing and reputation". Cases at the top court in Hong Kong are typically heard by a panel of four local judges and a fifth ad hoc member, who may be a foreign judge. In January, Hong Kong's chief justice said recruiting suitable overseas judges "may be less straightforward than it once was", given geopolitical headwinds. The government has defended the security law as necessary to restore order after the 2019 protests and said the city remains a well-respected legal hub. -AFP
