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RNZ News
8 hours ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Construction firms offering large discounts to avoid collapse
Photo: Construction companies are struggling to stay afloat as orders dry up amid tough economic times, with some slashing quotes by as much as 50 percent to get whatever work they can. Latest data from the Building Research Association of New Zealand showed that liquidations in the construction sector rose 37 percent in February year on year, accounting for 31 percent of all liquidations nationwide. Latest figures from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) showed a similar trend. The number of businesses with an MBIE construction code that had a liquidator appointed nearly doubled for the year ending 30 June 2023 compared to the previous year, climbing from 210 in 2022 to 416. By the end of June 2025, 687 companies with an MBIE construction code had a liquidator appointed, marking a more than threefold increase in just three years. Amid the sharp rise in closures, some Chinese construction firms had resorted in cutting quote prices and squeezing already tight margins to stay in business. Henry Wang, a former carpenter who had worked in the construction industry for eight years and now ran his own business, said pay rates for carpentry work had dropped sharply compared to the industry's recent peak. "The market was booming from 2020 to 2022," Wang said. "At that time, a carpenter could earn around $150 to $160 per square meter on a residential build. However, now payments have fallen by as much as 40 to 50 percent." Photo: Supplied/ Unsplash - Josh Olalde Wang said he began feeling the pressure in 2023, as layoffs started to spread across the construction sector and available work began to dry up. Wang, who worked for a Chinese construction firm, recalled long hours during the boom years. "We used to work from 7am to 6pm - sometimes even until 7pm - including Saturdays when business was really busy," he said. "But gradually, the company could only guarantee three days of work a week," he said. "By the end of 2023, they started cutting staff because there simply wasn't any work left." He estimated that between 60 and 80 percent of the workers at his former company were made redundant. He eventually left as well, citing a lack of available work. Now the owner of a small construction firm with six employees based in Auckland, Wang said most of his clients were in the commercial building sector. He remains cautious about the sector's outlook. "I'm not optimistic about the market this year or even next year," he said, noting that the project pipeline heading into 2026 is alarmingly thin. Wang said the downturn had triggered a destructive price war in the industry, which he found deeply concerning. "There isn't much work out there," he said. "A lot of companies are dropping their quote prices. Some are even slashing them by half just to win clients and stay in business. All I can do is hang in there and try to survive these next two years." Photo: RNZ Steven Jin, director of commercial fit out company Unique Constructions, felt the same pressure. Jin started his business in 2010, recalling a boom period between 2016 and 2018, when a surge of Chinese restaurants and retail shops opened across the market. However, that momentum faded quickly. Business confidence took a hit during the Covid-19 pandemic, and his project volume started dropping sharply from 2023. "Compared to 2018 and 2019, our business volume fell by more than 60 percent in 2023 and 2024," he said. Jin described the current construction market as bleak, noting that many contractors he had worked with had also been forced to slash their quote prices to remain competitive. "It's very challenging to do business right now," he said. "We're squeezing margins, sometimes down to just 5 percent or even operating at no profit at all. But we have no other choice. With the market like this, the only way to compete is on price." Jin said he didn't expect the market to rebound this year. For now, his goal is simple: Survive and stay afloat. "Everyone is competing against each other," he said. "Even big construction companies, their goal is to survive and avoid liquidation." Fletcher Building announced Wednesday it was considering the sale of its construction division assets following a strategic review of the business. Julien Leys, chief executive of the Building Industry Federation Photo: Supplied Julien Leys, chief executive of the Building Industry Federation, said New Zealand's building sector was largely made up of small businesses, typically employing between three and five people. He said Asian-owned construction companies accounted for roughly 22 percent of the market, contributing as much as $48 million per month in construction activity in the Auckland region. Leys said Asian construction companies were facing the same challenges affecting developers across the country, including a slowdown in residential property sales. "It's just a fact that we're seeing a downturn across the sector," he said. "People are finding it harder to get work, particularly those smaller builders." Leys said while the construction sector might see an uptick in activity by the middle of next year, the current market remained challenging. "There's still uncertainty that is affecting people making decisions about whether to start a build or a project," he said. "That uncertainty means all the subcontractors and contractors involved in those projects don't get work. "Right now, what we're seeing is that their order books - where they'd usually have an actual pipeline of activity for the next 12 months to work on - pretty much there's nothing in it." According to the latest building consent data from Stats NZ, 33,530 new dwellings were consented in the year ending on 31 May, a 3.8 percent decrease against the same period in 2024. Gareth Kiernan, chief forecaster at Infometrics Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King Gareth Kiernan, chief forecaster at Infometrics, said New Zealand experienced a residential construction boom in 2022, with approximately 51,000 consents issued, driven by surging house prices and historically low interest rates. However, he said it had since become much more difficult for developers to bring projects to market at a cost buyers were willing to pay. House prices fell substantially through 2022 into 2023, while interest rates and building costs continued to climb over the same period, he said. "Residential construction firms and the businesses supplying materials expanded their capacity a lot during the boom to meet demand," Kiernan said. "But now, there's just too much capacity across the industry, and that's causing issues for firms and leading to those liquidations." Kiernan said net migration shifts had also contributed to the softening of the housing market. "There was an undersupply of housing, particularly in Auckland," he said. "We haven't been able to keep up with demand through much of the last decade. "We had a migration boom initially when the borders reopened in 2023. But that's slowed away again, and now the housing market is still pretty soft. "Potentially, over the next year or so, we could be starting to move into a position with the housing market rather than being undersupplied to actually oversupplied. Meanwhile, Kiernan said a downturn in non-residential construction had emerged over the past six to nine months, as broader economic weakness began to weigh on commercial developments, adding further pressure across the sector. "Previously, commercial building was still holding up relatively well," he said. "But now we're seeing a flat to downturn in residential construction, and a downturn emerging in commercial building as well." Ankit Sharma, chief executive of the Registered Master Builders Association Photo: Supplied Ankit Sharma, chief executive of the Registered Master Builders Association, said builders nationwide, particularly small and family-owned firms, were under significant financial strain, driven by tightening profit margins, escalating costs and, in many cases, a lack of forward visibility. Sharma said residential activity expectations were beginning to lift in some regions. "We're starting to see early signs that the tide may be turning," he said. "In some regions like Central Otago, builders are telling us they're as busy as they've ever been." However, Sharma said the recovery remained uneven, particularly across parts of the upper North Island, including Auckland, where the pipeline of new work remained uncertain. Still, he said momentum was beginning to build. "Government initiatives such as the Investment Boost scheme and proposed procurement reforms are welcome steps that could help unlock activity and give firms greater confidence to invest," he said. Kiernan said the construction sector would eventually adjust to more sustainable levels of activity. "It's a case of almost like much of the rest of the economy," he said. "Things were really overheated in 2021 to 2022, and now it's kind of needing to move back, or consolidate back to what are more sort of sustainable levels of activity that can be kept going over the medium term."
News.com.au
16-07-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
‘Learnt on the job': Aussie dropouts smashing career goals
Luan Memishi dropped out of school in Grade 10. The 34-year-old Gold Coast business owner was never really cut out for academics, and found most of school boring, except for what he was learning in woodworking class. 'I did work experience for a while with my cousin who was a carpenter at the time, and then in 2006 I enrolled at Victoria University to complete my 16-week pre-apprenticeship course,' he told From there, a four-year apprenticeship led to a career in carpentry and form work, something that just this year, with prompting from his entrepreneur partner Monique, he parlayed into his own business, LMMJ Constructions. 'I always knew he was very talented but just need a little mentoring in business,' explains Monique, who runs nationwide modelling agency Diversity Models. Monique, who worked as a teacher for 13 years, says her own experience has shown her that mentoring in business can be far more effective and impactful than formal education. 'Luan has now won a huge civil construction contract on the Gold Coast and will go national soon with it,' she beams. 'I learnt on the job,' agrees Luan. 'And through a combination of meeting the right people who believed in me, and continuing to develop my skills, I've been able to be successful.' Evangeline Sarney was just 13 years old when she launched a beauty blog from her bedroom, growing up in the remote Flinders Ranges region of South Australia. Just five years later, that blog would be reaching 1.2 million readers worldwide. She began working with brands at just 14 years old. 'I received my first press package,' she recalls. 'And thought 'wow, this is cool, I don't need to buy products at Priceline anymore!' then went on to write paid articles for brands like The Body Shop and Palmers, and create visual content for brands including Covergirl, Burt's Bees, Schwarzkopf, L'Oreal, Priceline Australia, and many more.' By 21, Evangeline made the move from her sleepy country town to the US, landing a job as marketing consultant for L'Oreal/Lancome in New York - a dream start for anyone in the industry. 'From there, I secured full-time contracts with Estée Lauder and Elizabeth Arden, building a reputation as someone who understands both the creative and strategic side of brand marketing,' she explains. 'Today, I work as a marketing consultant for major beauty brands in NYC, helping them craft compelling campaigns and connect with modern audiences. Everything I've built has come from hands-on experience, hustle, and a deep passion for beauty …no university degree required.' Bryce Meeks completed a Bachelor of Business with a marketing major at La Trobe University in Melbourne, but says his most valuable education began behind the counter at his after-school job at Subway, where he started as a 'sandwich artist' at 16. Seventeen years later, Bryce is still employed by Subway, but has long moved on from casual shifts, rising through the ranks to become a shift manager before working his way up to head office. Having gained experience across several areas of the business since 2008 in development, operating and leasing, the 33-year-old is now the company's director of franchise performance for Queensland and the Northern Territory. 'I started at Subway to earn some money and in the beginning, I didn't even know that it could be a long-lasting career,' he says. Bryce has gained diverse professional experience in his different positions over the years - from helping aspiring business owners to secure their first restaurants, to negotiating leases and rolling out new technology, and says every position has taught him something valuable to help him grow. 'The majority of my learnings were at Subway on the job and that's experience no university can teach,' he said. In fact, the ability to learn on the job is a quality more and more Australian employers put a premium on. 'On-the-job training is an important part of what it means to be qualified,' a spokesperson from the Australian Government's Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) told 'The transfer of skills and knowledge from employer to employee, supervisor to worker or peer to peer, is a valid and vital form of learning. Formal training is not always necessary before starting a role and work experience can sometimes be the preference of employers.' New research from global recruitment outfit Indeed found that an overwhelming 94 per cent of employers globally valued on-the-job experience over formal qualifications, and with a number of companies dropping formal education requirements from their application criteria, the paradigm has well and truly shifted. The survey found that over half of employers (55 per cent) agree that on-the-job experience is more attractive than a university degree, with 70 per cent saying they will prioritise asking about an applicant's experience to help them decide in recruitment. Australian HR tech company Compono also found that 74 of Aussie organisations increased Learning & Development budgets mid-2024 to build skills internally, especially to fill talent shortages. There is evidence, too, that formal studying undertaken after a building a solid foundation within an industry can be more beneficial than the reverse, which has long been held up as the 'right' way to do things. For Evangeline, who did enrol in a bachelor's degree in communications in 2020 when she was temporarily forced to return home due to the pandemic, it didn't seem like the best use of her time. 'I quit after two semesters when I moved back to NYC,' she says. 'When I landed the gig at L'Oreal and was working alongside people with masters degrees, it didn't seem like the best use of my time to spend it studying.' And while formal education still holds merit for certain careers or types of learners, our rapidly changing career landscape paints a clear picture: perhaps it's time to redefine what it truly means to be 'qualified'.
The Guardian
05-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘Ephraim will know': the man who buried 10,000 people has lessons on empathy, loss and the majesty of memory
It's a cool summer morning in the last days of 1959 and a teenager is riding his bike through Sydney's Rookwood cemetery. As he glides across the grounds, he notices the signs of dawn. The dew is melting off the grass. A fox leaps behind a bunya pine, and as if out of nowhere, a few of its cubs follow. The soil is firm beneath his tyres, and he can smell it warming, roused by the sun after a night of slumber. Riding his Malvern Star, he is carefree. But Geoffrey William Finch, this lanky not-quite-man on his way to his carpentry job, is also careful. As he traverses the grounds, he sees the sun come up behind the headstones. Then he rounds a corner and sees the very same sun shining on an east-facing row, blazing into the engraved names of the dead. This morning, as every weekday morning, he could circumvent the cemetery, ride along the waking bustle of Lidcombe. Instead, he lets himself in through the pedestrian gate and cuts across the field of headstones. He chooses this route because he likes the quiet. This is the interlude in which he works out his world, considers the day to come. 'And the whole time I am talking,' he tells me, some six decades later, sitting at his broad dining table in Melbourne. 'Who are you talking to, Ephraim?' I ask, because now this boy is an elderly man with a different name, a different religion, a life that he could have scarcely predicted riding through Rookwood on those dewy mornings. Ephraim and I are sitting in his front room and the sun is pouring into the space between us. He is telling me stories. I notice that he prefers discussing his work to discussing himself. He wants to revisit his 30 years as director of a burial society – the people he comforted and held; those he ritually washed, wrapped and prayed for. But today I press him on those early years. I want to learn the soil of this man before I can describe its trees, the fruits it has borne. 'Who are you talking to, riding through Rookwood?' I repeat, lightly, as Ephraim closes his eyes, slipping into a temporal estuary. 'I am talking to God,' he says eventually, his hands resting on the table in front of him, a boyish smile now playing on his bearded face. That Ephraim says such a lofty thing without an ounce of grandiosity, without pushing or preaching, foreshadows what I will learn about this man. This man, at once deeply religious and utterly irreverent, softly spoken but defiant, is as prone to crying as to smiling. This man, whose work deals with the body as much as the spirit, dwells easefully at their intersections. This ageing Orthodox Jew with a broad Aussie accent, this voracious archivist and beloved community figure, this working-class butcher's son who felt pulled to the Torah, is, himself, many beautiful intersections. The notion of writing Ephraim's life has been in the ether for many years. If you were a member of Melbourne's Jewish community from the mid-1980s to 2015 you would – for better or worse – have had something to do with Ephraim Finch. Having buried over 10,000 individuals, Ephraim is – physically, emotionally, culturally and spiritually – linked to a great many lives in this unique pocket of the world. Not long ago, someone interviewed Ephraim with a view to writing his biography. But for one reason or another, a book did not eventuate. And so the idea made its way to my desk. A week after the publisher approached me, I was shown Ephraim's journal. I was struck by the language he used to chronicle his work with the dead and the dying, as well as their loved ones: 'Your heart could feel the pain of lovers separated by war.' 'How do you live a normal life? I don't know, but I feel their losses and their love for each other.' 'Sometimes you do not understand the depth of friendship until the final days.' I noticed his empathy for all those enduring loss. The intensely personal involvement with the details of another's narrative. The reverence for forces we battle but must ultimately accept. 'He knew he was going to die and seemed to accept it. I held his hand and wished him a safe journey,' he writes in one entry. I wanted to know more about this heart language and how a human might acquire it, become fluent in its lexicon. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion Underneath this sat something else. I had my own memory of Ephraim Finch, from a death in my family almost 20 years ago. When my then-husband's mother passed away in 2006, I remember Ephraim's name being uttered; on the cusp of her death, throughout her funeral, during the rituals that coloured the subsequent weeks. I do not recall the way Ephraim looked, or even meeting him. But I will never forget the way his name resonated in that house of mourning. It was as though the name itself had a beneficent forcefield; every time my grief-stricken father-in-law would say it, he seemed calmer. 'Ephraim will know' seemed to be the answer to the questions, many of them unanswerable. Time after time, in the sheer act of saying it, something in the atmosphere would ease, even as the tears continued. When the name 'Ephraim Finch' was spoken to me again, some 17 years later, I felt myself hurtling, with grateful awe, back into its orbit. At our first meeting, before I have even begun to prepare myself for the flood of names and narratives, Ephraim launches into a recollection of everyone he continues to visit at Springvale Jewish cemetery, almost 10 years after retirement from his role as director of the Jewish burial society. 'It's my village,' he says, closing his eyes and taking me along on his imaginary tour of the place. 'I see all of them as I go around … it's like walking down the street. There is the lovely gentleman who descended from the Radomsker Rebbe, and there is Bill … Hello Bill, my dear friend! And here is Mr Cykiert, who gave me his poem just before he passed.' I continue to watch him meet them, one by one. 'And, oh.' He drops to a whisper, his fluttering hands stilling. 'Hello, dear boy.' Something subtle shifts in his facial musculature, his eyes flicker. 'You see, I buried this boy …' In this moment, Ephraim's wife Cas, who has been sitting with us the entire time, softly interjects. 'May I tell this story, darling?' she asks, in a manner I will witness many times over the coming months. There is a concert of silent knowings between Cas and Ephraim, an instinct for each other's pauses. Intuitively, they allocate the best raconteur for the moment, illuminating and verifying one another. 'I'd like to explain why we are so connected to this boy, if I may?' Cas asks, her voice deep and low, her blue eyes cloudy. Ephraim nods. 'We were out one day with our daughter Sharona, who is now 42, but was then 20. It was a hot day, but she was suddenly freezing and had a terrible headache. This went on for days and on the third night she developed a rash. On top of this, she felt like every bone in her body was breaking. Next morning, I got up at dawn to get her some Panadeine. As soon as my finger made contact with her arm, dark purple spots started to appear, spreading. And Ephraim knew exactly what it was, because he had buried this magnificent young man a few years earlier. He knew the symptoms.' A doctor arrived not long after and administered a penicillin shot, which bought Sharona time to get to the hospital, where she would stay for three weeks. One day an infectious diseases doctor approached the Finches on the ward. 'How did you recognise the meningococcal septicaemia?' he asked Ephraim. 'Doctor, I buried a boy in 1991 …' And before Ephraim could say more the doctor named that boy, remembering the family. They stood mutely for some time, struck by the reach of tragedy. But beneath the moment was an undertow, a twist in the Finches' hearts. It was nothing as crass or numerical as a sacrifice schema – Cas and Ephraim never believed that this boy died so Sharona could live. In fact, it was an inversion of this 'lucky us' smugness – they had never forgotten that this child died while theirs had lived. Three months after Cas tells this story, Ephraim and I will go to Springvale together, and when we reach this young man's grave, Ephraim will bend down and kiss the engraved marble. He will greet the boy and read his name out loud, along with his date of passing. He will intone the names of his mother and father. He will weep for them, while knowing the limits of his weeping. He will continue bending, head bowed, holding all the connections in all his body. And I sense, simply by being next to this softly moving human, the shuddering proximity between us all, the near misses, the churn of loss and the majesty of memory, the ceaseless current of our arrivals and departures. This is an edited extract from Ferryman: The Life and Deathwork of Ephraim Finch by Katia Ariel (Wild Dingo Press, A$34.99).
Wall Street Journal
26-06-2025
- Wall Street Journal
The Killings That Shattered a Small Washington Town
WENATCHEE, Wash.—May was coming to an end, and Travis Decker was having a bad week. A homeless, 32-year-old Army veteran, Travis had been in a fender-bender and worried he would be jailed or fall into debt. He feared central Washington's dry heat would force him to surrender his dog, Chinook, who usually waited inside Travis's truck while he found carpentry work. His relationship with his co-workers was souring.
Khaleej Times
18-06-2025
- Business
- Khaleej Times
In a Pakistan valley, a small revolution among women
In a sawdust-filled workshop nestled in the Karakoram Mountains, a team of women carpenters chisel away at cabinets -- and forge an unlikely career for themselves in Pakistan. Women make up just a fraction of Pakistan's formal workforce. But in a collection of villages sprinkled along the old Silk Road between China and Afghanistan, a group of women-led businesses is defying expectations. "We have 22 employees and have trained around 100 women," said Bibi Amina, who launched her carpentry workshop in 2008 at the age of 30. Hunza Valley's population of around 50,000, spread across mountains abounding with apricot, cherry, walnut and mulberry orchards, follow the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam. Ismailis are led by the Aga Khan, a hereditary position held by a family with Pakistani roots now living in Europe. The family opened a girls' school in Hunza in 1946, kickstarting an educational investment that pushed the valley's literacy rate to 97 percent for both men and women. That rate far outstrips the country average of around 68 percent for men and 52.8 percent for women. As a result, attitudes have shifted, and women like Amina are taking expanded roles. "People thought women were there to wash dishes and do laundry," Amina said of the generation before her. Trained by the Aga Khan Foundation to help renovate the ancient Altit Fort, Amina later used her skills to start her own business. Her carpenters are currently at work on a commission from a luxury hotel. Pioneers Only 23 percent of the women in Pakistan were officially part of the labour force as of 2024, according to data from the World Bank. In rural areas, women rarely take on formal employment but often toil in the fields to support the family's farming income. In a Gallup poll published last year, a third of women respondents said their father or husband forbade them from taking a job, while 43.5 percent said they had given up work to devote themselves to domestic tasks. Cafe owner Lal Shehzadi spearheaded women's restaurant entrepreneurship in Hunza. She opened her cafe at the top of a winding high street to supplement her husband's small army pension. Sixteen years later, her simple set-up overlooking the valley has become a popular night-time tourist attraction. She serves visitors traditional cuisine, including yak meat, apricot oil and rich mountain cheese. "At the start, I used to work alone," she said. "Now, 11 people work here and most of them are women. And my children are also working here." Following in Shehzadi's footsteps, Safina quit her job to start her own restaurant around a decade ago. "No one wanted to help me," she said. Eventually, she convinced family members to sell two cows and a few goats for the money she needed to launch her business. Now, she earns the equivalent of around $170 a month, more than 15 times her previous income. Farming to football The socio-economic progress of women in Hunza compared to other rural areas of Pakistan has been driven by three factors, according to Sultan Madan, the head of the Karakoram Area Development Organisation and a local historian. "The main reason is the very high literacy rate," he told AFP, largely crediting the Aga Khan Foundation for funding training programmes for women. "Secondly, agriculture was the backbone of the economy in the region, but in Hunza the landholding was meagre and that was why women had to work in other sectors." Women's increased economic participation has spilled into other areas of life, like sports fields. "Every village in the valley has a women's soccer team: Gojal, Gulmit, Passu, Khyber, Shimsal," said Nadia Shams, 17. On a synthetic pitch, she trains with her teammates in jogging pants or shorts, forbidden elsewhere by Pakistan's dress code. Here, one name is on everyone's lips: Malika-e-Noor, the former vice-captain of the national team who scored the winning penalty against the Maldives in the 2010 South Asian Women's Football Championship. Fahima Qayyum was six years old when she witnessed the killer kick. Today, after several international matches, she is recruiting the next generation. "As a girl, I stress to others the importance of playing, as sport is very good for health," she told AFP. "If they play well, they can also get scholarships."
