Auckland Council set to cut 500 more jobs
In an email to staff from acting chief executive Patricia Reade today she said fulltime equivalent staff numbers would reduce from 6500 to about 6000. The job cuts are on top of 600 part-time staff who have already been let go by council, one of the city's largest employers. Next week councillors will make tough calls on the "emergency budget" to plug the hole, including savage cuts to transport and fewer community services. Reade said she knows staff will be concerned about what the budget means to them and their role at the council. "The economic impact of Covid-19 has meant the entire council group is having to work hard to find savings, so we can continue to deliver the services that Aucklanders value." She said the council's share of the savings is significant at around $120 million and some tough decisions about how we prioritise and deliver our services for Aucklanders. Good progress was being made, she said, with each business area in council having identified savings of about $90m.
These include deferring or slowing down projects, scaling back events or reducing spending in areas like marketing and professional services. Reade said the council began with contractors and temps, removing more than 600 positions, and have asked staff earning over $100,000 to consider voluntary pay reductions. "But even with these measures in place, we will need to reduce the size of our workforce to meet the overall savings target.
"We estimate that we will need to reduce the number of full-time equivalent staff in our organisation from around 6500 at the end of June to around 6000. "This is only an estimate at this stage, but it reinforces that to play our part we will need to become a smaller, more adaptable organisation," 'Reade said. The job cuts apply to council staff, not staff at the five CCOs.
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BLOCKHOUSE BAY COMMUNITY MARKET THIS SATURDAY MORNING!
1st MARKET BACK FOR 2O26! WE'RE BACK AND WILL BE AT GREENBAY COMMUNITY CENTRE BEHIND NEW WORLD OR ON BARRON RD OFF VARDON RD AS BHB CENTRE IS HAVING AN UPGRADE. CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU THERE!
Even Australians get it - so why not Kiwis???
“Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages.
On Australia’s main grid last quarter, renewables and energy storage contributed more than 50% of supplied electricity for the first time, while wholesale power prices were more than 40% lower than a year earlier.
[…] shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.
Last quarter, wind generation was up almost 30%, grid solar 15% and grid-scale batteries almost tripled their output. Gas generation fell 27% to its lowest level for a quarter century, while coal fell 4.6% to its lowest quarterly level ever.
Gas has long been the most expensive way to produce power. Gas peaking plants tend to fire up only when supply struggles to meet demand and power prices soar. Less demand for gas has flowed through to lower wholesale prices.”
Full article: www.theguardian.com...
If even Australians see the benefit of solar - then why is NZ actively boycotting solar uptake? The increased line rental for electricity was done to make solar less competitive and prevent cost per kWh to rise even more than it did - and electricity costs are expected to rise even more. Especially as National favours gas - which is the most expensive form of generating electricity. Which in turn will accelerate Climate Change, as if New Zealand didn’t have enough problems with droughts, floods, slips, etc. already.
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