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- What’s been happening in our MAKE│NZ Community
- Upcoming Events
- News From The World of Manufacturing
- Other News of Interest to Manufacturing
- Fun Facts
What’s been happening in our MAKE│NZ Community
This week Andre is updating us on…
Turning National Challenges into Local Action
ExportNZ has released its 2026 Pre-Election Blueprint – Grow Locally, Compete Globally, highlighting many of the issues shaping the future competitiveness of New Zealand manufacturers and exporters.
The report identifies challenges ranging from skills and talent, innovation and commercialisation, energy and infrastructure, through to regulation, digital capability, supply chains, and access to international markets.
One message particularly resonates with us at MAKE│NZ: these challenges cannot be tackled in isolation. Building a stronger manufacturing sector requires better connections between industry, education, government, and the wider business ecosystem.
That is exactly where MAKE│NZ is focused on here in Canterbury.
Through Calibrate, Fireside Chats, industry connections, interest groups, advocacy, conferences, and practical learning opportunities, we are creating more ways for manufacturers to connect, share what works, learn from each other and tackle common challenges.
Our role is to help connect the dots — bringing manufacturers together around real issues, strengthening capability and ensuring Canterbury manufacturing has a strong voice.
With a manufacturing community stretching from biscuits to rocket ships, Canterbury has enormous capability and diversity.
ExportNZ has done some great work putting these issues firmly on the national agenda. Our challenge now is helping turn them into action here in Canterbury.
If any of these issues are affecting your business, or you would like to learn more about what MAKE│NZ is doing and how you can get involved, please get in touch. I’m always keen to hear what’s happening on the factory floor and where we can help.
Andre de Roo
MAKE│NZ
andre@makenz.org
022 059 3877
Upcoming Events
Have you got your tickets for our first Calibrate event?
Growing Our Own will be a chance to learn how the team at Lyttleton Engineering have developed their people. Through their apprentice training programme they’ve developed qualified and experienced staff. Their success can be seen just by looking at their own senior leadership team, which including 5 Lyttleton Engineering apprentices, with two being company directors.
Our hosts will be Richard York – General Manager, Nick Jessop – Operation Manager, & Robbie Sutton – Apprentice Mentor.
You can expect to walk away with
- Connections with manufacturers facing similar workforce challenges.
- Practical ideas for developing and retaining skilled people within your business.
- Insights into how Lyttleton Engineering has built a successful “grow your own” culture.
- Real examples of apprentices progressing into leadership roles.
- Ideas for strengthening partnerships with schools, Ara, and industry.
Make sure to RSVP here and we’ll be sure to save you a seat!
As this is the first of many more Calibrate events to come, we’re opening our doors to those not yet members of MAKE│NZ who are curious what it could look like. So even if you aren’t a paid member, we’d still love to see you there.
Any questions, don’t hesitate to check in with the team.
News From The World of Manufacturing
•“Over the past few years, we have watched a gradually increasing process of de-industrialisation across a number of our historically strong manufacturing sectors.” EMA Policy Directives 2026
The de-industrialisation spectre also crops up regularly in politicians’ speeches. What does ‘de-industrialisation’ actually mean, and how do we measure it? There are several parameters we could consider. One often quoted is the share of manufacturing in the Gross Domestic Product [GDP], expressed in percent, which undoubtedly has been declining steadily over the past 50-odd years in New Zealand, as it has been in most other OECD countries, albeit at different rates:
This data does not, of course, say anything about whether manufacturing as an industry has grown, shrunk, or remained level. It could be that manufacturing has grown, but at a much lower rate than GDP in total.
If we want to measure the size of a particular sector of the economy itself, we are usually restricted to the number of people employed in that sector, and the sector’s total output, adjusted for inflation. Looking at employment numbers first:
No signs of a decline here. Employment data can only paint part of the picture, though. There could be a shift in the make-up of the total industry with rising employment in low-value-add sub-sectors (industries), resulting in a decline in industry output overall. That’s why the latter is arguably the most important parameter when it comes to deciding whether we have de-industrialisation, or not (Source: Statistics NZ):
There has been a decline in output past the COVID-19 pandemic, but whether that’s enough of a signal to talk about de-industrialisation is another question.
The EMA mentions “de-industrialisation across a number of our historically strong manufacturing sectors.” The waxing and waning of manufacturing sub-sectors over a period of decades is not a new phenomenon. Think about the British or German steel industries, or the car industries in both countries, albeit with a time shift for the latter. Or think about the US shipbuilding industry
Again, using output data, do we see a significant shift in terms of the contribution of key sub-sectors to total manufacturing?
Again, apart from a marked decline in Petroleum, Chemical, Polymer and Rubber Product Manufacturing recently, there don’t seem to be any strong trends at least over past 10 years to 2024.
There has been renewed interest in manufacturing in a number of countries -not only the USA- be that for reasons of economic resilience, enhanced defence capability, or other reasons. For those of us passionate about and/or working in manufacturing, there is no reason to assume that a strong manufacturing sector won’t continue to be an important contributor to creating wealth in New Zealand. Crying “Wolf” should not be the message right now…
Other News of Interest to Manufacturing
•Last week we reported on the upcoming changes in the secondary school curriculum, introducing nine industry-led subjects for Years 12 and 13. Looking around, it turns out that the concept as such isn’t novel. In Australia, for example, Victoria had vocational education as part of its secondary school curriculum since 1995, and in Singapore secondary school students can choose from a range of applied subjects.
The closest to the new concept here is probably what, in the UK, are called T-Levels: “T Levels are 2-year courses which are taken after GCSEs and are broadly equivalent in size to 3 A Levels. Launched in September 2020, these courses have been developed in collaboration with employers and education providers so that the content meets the needs of industry and prepares students for entry into skilled employment, an apprenticeship or related technical study through further or higher education. T Levels offer students practical and knowledge-based learning at a school or college and on-the-job experience through an industry placement of at least 315 hours – approximately 45 days.”
Currently there are 15 subjects for which students can pursue a T-Level qualification:
What has the experience of UK employers – especially in manufacturing and engineering- been with the programme? Not surprisingly, the major roadblock to success has been the industry placements: One review, based largely on casual observation, finds the usual challenges: Lack of awareness among employers and the perception of taking on a student creating an extra burden which has meant that finding industry placements remains difficult. To address that, in 2023/24 the UK government offered financial support for employers providing placements – incentive payments of up to £25,000 for businesses hosting industry placements for 12 months from April 2023. That proved to be moderately successful only. Of the £8.5m paid out under the scheme, almost half (£3.9m) were recouped later as unclaimed or claimed without delivery of placements.
A systematic review was undertaken by the UK Parliament last year. Its findings are probably best summarised by the key findings and recommendations of the Review Committee:
1. More students need to complete T Levels for them to be sustainable and deliver expected outcomes. “In September 2024, 25,508 students enrolled on T Levels, significantly fewer than the Department’s original ambition and earlier forecasts.”
2. There is a risk that colleges cannot secure enough industry placements for more students to complete their T Levels. “… only one third of employers are aware of T Levels and colleges face challenges sourcing placements in certain locations and for certain courses, such as engineering, digital and health.”
3. The Department has not provided clarity on how T Levels align with other technical qualifications and career pathways. “… The Department believes too many overlapping qualifications creates [sic] confusion for students. …”
4. T Levels are intended to address skills gaps and meet employers’ needs, but they cannot quickly be adapted to meet this objective. …”T Levels have been developed and approved by employers to, for example, better meet their needs and improve students’ employment prospects. It will take time to develop course content – the Department and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (update qualification content each year, but it can take a minimum 18 months for an occupational standard, which provides the basis of a T Level, to be changed.”
It will be interesting to see where the New Zealand programme is going to land on the issue of industry placements. As far as we are aware, no decision has been made yet on that.
Fun Facts (some of them not so funny)
•“It’s really hard for young people in New Zealand to find a job nowadays” is a widely shared perception. The numbers confirm high rates of youth unemployment, with a steady rise after the COVID-19 pandemic:
These figures hide significant geographic variation, as well as differences between age groups. Statistics NZ’s latest annual labour market data (year to June 2026) doesn’t provide a breakdown for youth unemployment by ethnicity, but for the overall working population, unemployment rates for Māori at 11.0% and Pacific Peoples at 12.0% are double that for the overall population (5.6%).
How do these figures compare to the global situation? The ILO has just published its latest report on youth unemployment, and New Zealand as part of the High-Income Group is higher for both the youth unemployment rate (NZ 16.6%):
and the NEET rate (NZ 13.8%):
Note also that the rates for both have been pretty much level post-COVID-19 for the High-Income group of countries, whereas both have risen during that period in New Zealand.
The ILO Report also looked at the share of unemployed in the 20-29-year age group, generally seen as the group where most young people will seek to enter the full-time labour market for the first time. It didn’t find any significant changes in these rates between 2016, when the data in question was first captured, and 2026, across all income groups.
The Report also looked at unemployment rates (in this case ages 15 to 29) in relation to the level of highest qualification and found that unemployment rate in 2025 rose with increasing levels of education (Basic / Secondary / Tertiary Qualification), with that effect being much more pronounced in the two lower-income groups.
High-income countries (44): 5.9% / 7.1% / 6.3%
Upper-middle-income countries (30): 4.7% / 7.9% / 10.3%
Low- and lower-middle-income countries (22): 4.6% / 8.5% / 14.1%
Finally, the Report also looked at the “AI effect” frequently invoked to explain why it appears to be harder these days for young people to get into their first job. The ILO’s conclusions:
- “Yes, some jobs held by youth have a high AI exposure risk, depending on the degree of digital proliferation in the country.
- Yet, the degree to which risk translates to job loss is still debatable.”
We’ll have more on the ‘AI effect’ next week.
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