The SME Stream

There's signs the economy's still shaky, with the unemployment rate now the highest it's been in years, at 5.7 percent for the September quarter.

Unemployment was last this high 11 years ago - and it's 13 years since it was even higher.

ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner says businesses are likely waiting to make staffing changes.

"If you're a business, it's risky to hire people and it's risky to fire people - so firms tend to wait for evidence to accumulate that either is necessary." 

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How has the job market been faring?  

Stats NZ is releasing its latest quarterly unemployment data at 10.45am. 

Some economists expect unemployment to remain unchanged at 5.6%, an 11-year high, while others expect it will dip slightly to 5.5% or 5.4% – the first fall in five years. 

BNZ Chief Economist Mike Jones told Ryan Bridge they expect the rate to stay the same, but they're also expecting employment itself to increase. 

He says they're forecasting a 0.4% increase for the quarter, so they're pretty confident New Zealand saw some decent job growth. 

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Most economists expect the latest unemployment figures to show the labour market has finally turned a corner.  

Stats NZ is releasing its latest quarterly data at 10.45am. 

Westpac is picking a fall from 5.6% to 5.5% for Q3 – the first drop in five years. 

Chief Economist Kelly Eckhold told Mike Hosking we've seen the strongest quarter of employment growth since the start of 2023, and that combined with slower population growth adds up to a falling unemployment rate. 

He says our economic growth is still unbalanced, but there's enough that we should see falls in the unemployment rate throughout the next year and a half.  

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One more serious competitor in the market is great news for customers. 2degrees Business wrap with Garth Bray.

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The Labour leader's promising other parties' tax proposals are off the table under his watch – even if the Greens get a good chunk of the seats in Parliament. 

The Green Party's campaigning on new taxes and increases to the corporate tax rate, as well as taxes on earnings above $160,000. 

Labour's pledging what it calls a simple, targeted capital gains tax. 

Leader Chris Hipkins told Kerre Woodham the Greens will not force him to do things he's promised are not happening. 

He says they can continue to make their case, but says Labour will not betray its voters. 

Hipkins is expecting a high turnout this election if the early voting momentum's maintained.  

But the Labour leader says it's unfortunate 260 thousand people aren't on the roll to vote.  

He says many of these people are young and may have only started tuning into the election in the past week, but now it's too late.  

Hipkins told Woodham we need a robust electoral process, but the main issue we encounter is people voting more than once, quite often older people who might not realise.  

He says there's a human element – it's not an intention to defraud the voting system, it's just what happens. 

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The Government has been banking on an economic recovery — but has it arrived too late to help at the ballot box?

This week on The Economy of Everything, Liam Dann and Tamsyn Parker discuss why signs of improvement still aren’t translating into stronger wages or confidence, and why the coalition keeps having to promise things will get better next year.

Plus, could a close election leave businesses waiting until Christmas for certainty? And what happens if a global economic shock hits while parties are negotiating?

The Economy of Everything is brought to you by CMC Markets.

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Revolut has become New Zealand's 27th bank, after the Reserve Bank granted the London-based platform a banking licence.

This will enable Revolut to hold deposits and participate in the Reserve Bank’s Depositor Compensation Scheme. 

Revolut CEO Ryan Brosnahan says this is an 'exciting' opportunity. 

"We find that customers actually want to interact with their phones, rather than walking into a branch - and so we've built the entire business around that." 

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Retailers are feeling more optimistic about the year ahead, with confidence reaching a two-year high. 

Retail NZ's latest Retail Radar report finds 73% are confident their business will survive the next 12 months. 

A similar number expect to meet or exceed their sale targets in the final three months of the year. 

Chief executive Carolyn Young told Mike Hosking the year has been a bit up and down, largely impacted by the pesky fuel prices. 

She says if we could get those under control, there's the sense the economy might move in the right direction for both consumers and businesses.  

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Our dairy industry is continuing to reach new heights. 

Prices have risen another 3% at this morning's Global Dairy Trade auction, with whole milk powder up 5.9% and skim milk powder up 3.1%. 

The sector's also produced more than two billion kilograms of milksolids during a single season for the first time. 

Dairy NZ Chief Executive Campbell Parker told Mike Hosking it's despite farmers costs still rising. 

He says farmers are doing more with less and drive good productivity through good decision making. 

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Brooke Campbell’s career has taken her from HR specialist to a role spanning people, corporate affairs, communications and sustainability across an international business.

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Brooke joins Lisa Oakley to unpack what she has learned along the way, including why some of the most valuable development for an HR professional happens when they become curious about what sits outside the traditional HR remit.

As Chief People and Corporate Affairs Officer at Skyline Enterprises, Brooke is part of the executive leadership team helping shape organisational capability, culture, stakeholder engagement and sustainability as the New Zealand-headquartered business continues to grow internationally.

For Brooke, becoming an enterprise leader meant moving beyond the mindset of only contributing when the conversation was explicitly about people. She argues that the “magic” happens when People leaders are thinking about marketing, P&L and commercial opportunities, while operational and finance leaders are also thinking about people.

That does not mean HR should take ownership of everything.

Brooke describes the trap of becoming the organisational “letterbox”, taking an issue, doing the work and handing the answer back. Instead, she encourages HR teams to focus on supporting outcomes by coaching, challenging, questioning and providing expertise while leaving leaders accountable for leading their people.

The conversation then looks at what those ideas mean across a global workforce.

Brooke shares Skyline’s experience of taking a New Zealand business and culture into international markets, while recognising that values may be expressed differently across locations. Skyline’s core values, “We’re brave. We care. We do.”, were surfaced through employees rather than created solely in a boardroom, and became particularly important as the organisation navigated COVID across multiple jurisdictions.

Brooke and Lisa also discuss talent attraction in Queenstown, the importance of aligning the external employer brand with the lived employee experience, and the wider ecosystem required to attract people and their families to a region.

Her legal background brings another dimension to the conversation. Brooke argues that HR professionals need to understand how to apply the law, rather than simply follow a process, recognising that the legally safest answer may not always be the best people answer. Legal guardrails still matter, but so do judgement, organisational risk appetite and the unique circumstances of each employment relationship.

The episode finishes with Brooke’s perspective on AI in tourism and a simple challenge to leaders: get into the business, listen to what people are actually experiencing and stay curious about what is happening beyond your own function.

What You’ll Learn

• How Brooke moved from specialist HR roles into enterprise leadership

• Why curiosity is an important modern leadership capability

• Why HR professionals need confidence to step outside the traditional HR lane

• What cross-functional thinking looks like in practice

• Why people issues are also commercial, operational and strategic issues

• The difference between supporting outcomes and delivering outputs

• Why HR should not become the organisational “letterbox”

• How coaching and challenging leaders builds stronger accountability

• Why trust and relationships matter when influencing leaders

• What Brooke has learned from supporting an international workforce from Queenstown

• Which basic employee expectations remain similar across cultures

• Why getting on the ground matters when working across different countries

• How local cultural context can reveal issues that are difficult to understand remotely

• Why Skyline calls Queenstown its “support office” rather than its “head office”

• How corporate affairs, sustainability and people strategy can connect

• Why employees should also be understood as a stakeholder group

• How shared organisational values can coexist with different local cultures

• How Skyline surfaced its global values

• What COVID taught Brooke about crisis leadership

• Why values become especially important when there is no existing playbook

• The importance of maintaining a long-term view through crisis

• How Skyline balanced organisational survival with employee care

• The challenges of communicating with a predominantly frontline workforce

• Why organisations need to intentionally embed lessons after a crisis

• How Brooke’s view of organisational change evolved after COVID

• What Skyline has learned about attracting talent to Queenstown

• Why recruiting a person can also mean considering their partner, family and wider support system

• The relationship between external brand and internal employee experience

• Why existing employees and leaders can be an organisation’s strongest ambassadors

• The wider infrastructure challenges involved in attracting talent to resort towns

• Why applying employment law is different from simply following process

• How organisational risk appetite affects HR decision-making

• Why employment relationship problems often begin long before HR becomes involved

• How expectation setting and feedback can prevent issues from escalating

• Brooke’s call to move from discussion to action on women in leadership

• Where AI could create value in tourism

• Why AI may be most useful in removing friction around the customer experience

• Why leaders need to spend time where the work is actually happening

Key Takeaways

• HR needs to understand the whole business. Brooke believes People leaders create more value when they contribute to commercial, operational and strategic discussions rather than remaining inside a functional box.

• Curiosity creates opportunities. Brooke describes her own career as more opportunistic than deliberately designed, with curiosity helping her step into new areas.

• Do not confuse influence with ownership. HR can coach, challenge and provide expertise without taking responsibility for every people outcome.

• Relationships matter. Being able to say “I told you so” is less valuable than maintaining enough trust for a leader to seek your advice again.

• Global consistency does not require identical local experiences. Shared values can provide the foundation while different cultures bring those values to life differently.

• Values matter most when the playbook disappears. Skyline’s experience through COVID reinforced the importance of knowing who the organisation is and what it stands for.

• Getting the basics right still matters. Respect, meaningful work, fair remuneration and clear communication remain important regardless of where employees are based.

• Talent attraction is bigger than the candidate. Location, family, housing and support networks can all influence whether someone can realistically make a move.

• The law is a guardrail, not a substitute for judgement. HR professionals still need to understand context, risk and the human consequences of decisions.

• Many employment problems start much earlier than the dispute itself. Recruitment promises, expectation setting and feedback can all influence whether a relationship later deteriorates.

• AI should help people deliver better experiences. Brooke sees opportunity for AI to remove transactional friction rather than replace the human core of tourism.

• Leaders need to get closer to the work. Brooke’s closing challenge is to listen, observe and engage directly with the people doing the work rather than attempting to lead entirely from a distance.

About Brooke Campbell

Brooke Campbell is the Chief People and Corporate Affairs Officer at Skyline Enterprises.

She leads Skyline’s people, corporate affairs, communications and sustainability functions and is a member of the organisation’s executive leadership team. Her remit includes organisational capability, culture, governance support, stakeholder engagement and sustainability strategy across the international Skyline Group.

Her career has developed from traditional HR and employment relations experience into broader enterprise leadership, giving her a perspective that connects people strategy with commercial performance, corporate affairs, sustainability and international growth. 

Why This Episode Matters

HR is often encouraged to “get out of its lane”, but Brooke’s perspective adds an important qualification.

Getting closer to the whole business does not mean taking responsibility for everything.

It means understanding enough about commercial performance, operations, customers, risk and strategy to ask better questions, provide better advice and help leaders make stronger decisions.

That distinction becomes even more important as organisations face international growth, workforce change, AI and increasingly complex employment environments.

Brooke’s closing message is particularly practical: get into the business and listen.

If leaders are not talking with the people on the factory floor, in the kitchen, in the office or at the frontline of the customer experience, Brooke questions whether they can really understand what their people need or lead as effectively as they should.

Resources & Links

• Skyline Enterprises: https://skylineenterprises.co.nz/
• Connect with Brooke Campbell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooke-campbell-7063a015/
• HR Unlocked: https://linktr.ee/hrunlocked

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