Academic literature on the topic 'New Zealand. Manpower Planning Unit'

This study sought to shed light on the experiences of Tongan immigrants in New Zealand. Three major areas were explored: the migration decision-making process, socio-economic changes in the host country, and transnational networks with Tonga. With respect to migration decision-making, the nuclear family plays an important role as the final decision-making unit. Family-related reasons, jobs, and study were the typical reasons for migration to New Zealand. Regarding socio-economic changes, the immigrants' income tends to increase as their duration of stay in New Zealand lengthens. Most of them work at blue-collar jobs. Many immigrants who were unmarried at the time of migration married after moving to New Zealand, mostly to other Tongans. The church serves as a critical support system for the immigrants. Tongans tend to prefer permanent residency visas over New Zealand citizenship. Remittances continue to play an important role in immigrants' links to Tonga, as do communication with family members and visits to Tonga. Despite these continuing links with their home country, most of the immigrants do not wish to return to Tonga permanently.

The author develops a simulation model to estimate the optimum timing and maximum impact of full rehabilitation of New Zealand housing stock. The model is based on the theories of classical population dynamics. Data used in the model include empirical estimates of the mortality of New Zealand housing stock, assumed schedules of depreciation of dwelling services, and assumed schedules of annual maintenance costs. The dwelling service years provided by dwellings serve as a proxy for benefits of rents or imputed rents (excluding rent for land). The cost to construct one dwelling and fractions thereof serve as a proxy for costs of maintenance, rehabilitation, replacement, and new construction. Optimum timing of rehabilitation can increase the quantity of benefits provided by the housing stock per unit total cost but a reduction in the growth rate of new dwellings has a greater impact in achieving the same objective. A stationary and stable housing stock can provide 45% more dwelling services per unit total cost than a housing stock which doubles in size every 35 years.

Much of the emphasis on facility design for shipbuilding has focused on improved processes and material flow, whether in the panel lines, block assembly, unit erection, or dry-dock operations. However, the analysis performed during planning for a new structural fabrication facility at the Quonset Point site of Electric Boat Corporation indicates that excessive, non-value-added time is spent in material movement, job setup, and locating resources (crane, service material, inspection equipment, etc.). Although these problems are evident in many shipbuilding operations, they are especially problematic in submarine fabrication, where the structural components are high value added, production volumes are low, movement of in-process products is costly, and inspection requirements are stringent. In planning for the new facility for structural fabrication, Electric Boat is using a product-centric approach. The goal is to define manageable families of products and design a facility to ensure that all of the resources required by these products are readily available during their fabrication. In this paper the authors first present the methodology used to develop process models for the product families at Electric Boat. These process models provide critical input to the design team determining space, equipment, and manpower requirements for the new facility. The authors then discuss the design process for a new facility focused on the production of structural product families for submarines.

ObjectiveTo compare maternal and neonatal birth outcomes and morbidities associated with the intention to give birth in a freestanding primary level midwife-led maternity unit (PMU) or tertiary level obstetric-led maternity hospital (TMH) in Canterbury, Aotearoa/New Zealand.DesignProspective cohort study.Participants407 women who intended to give birth in a PMU and 285 women who intended to give birth at the TMH in 2010–2011. All of the women planning a TMH birth were ‘low risk’, and 29 of the PMU cohort had identified risk factors.Primary outcomesMode of birth, Apgar score of less than 7 at 5 min and neonatal unit admission. Secondary outcomes: labour onset, analgesia, blood loss, third stage of labour management, perineal trauma, non-pharmacological pain relief, neonatal resuscitation, breastfeeding, gestational age at birth, birth weight, severe morbidity and mortality.ResultsWomen who planned a PMU birth were significantly more likely to have a spontaneous vaginal birth (77.9%vs62.3%, adjusted OR (AOR) 1.61, 95% CI 1.08 to 2.39), and significantly less likely to have an instrumental assisted vaginal birth (10.3%vs20.4%, AOR 0.59, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.93). The emergency and elective caesarean section rates were not significantly different (emergency: PMU 11.6% vs TMH 17.5%, AOR 0.88, 95% CI 0.55 to 1.40; elective: PMU 0.7% vs TMH 2.1%, AOR 0.34, 95% CI 0.08 to 1.41). There were no significant differences between the cohorts in rates of 5 min Apgar score of <7 (2.0%vs2.1%, AOR 0.82, 95% CI 0.27 to 2.52) and neonatal unit admission (5.9%vs4.9%, AOR 1.44, 95% CI 0.70 to 2.96). Planning to give birth in a primary unit was associated with similar or reduced odds of intrapartum interventions and similar odds of all measured neonatal well-being indicators.ConclusionsThe results of this study support freestanding midwife-led primary-level maternity units as physically safe places for well women to plan to give birth, with these women having higher rates of spontaneous vaginal births and lower rates of interventions and their associated morbidities than those who planned a tertiary hospital birth, with no differences in neonatal outcomes.

This research focuses on proposing and evaluating an optimized hybrid system of wind and tidal turbines operating as a renewable energy generating unit in New Zealand. Literature review indicates increasing worldwide investment in offshore renewable energy in recent years. Offshore energy shows a high potential as an alternative energy generation solution to that of fossil fuels. Using the capacities of wind and tidal power in renewable technologies would be a suitable alternative for fossil fuels and would help prevent their detrimental effects on the environment. It is a cost-effective procedure for the power generation sector to maximize these renewables as a hybrid system. At the design phase, turbine types appropriate to environmental conditions for an area with high wind speed and tidal flow need to be considered. When selecting which turbines should be used, horizontal or vertical axis, number and length of blades, and optimized rotational speed are all important to get maximum capacity from either the wind or tidal energy for the hybrid system. Comprehensive simulation models of the hybrid system are now being set up, using several available commercial software packages such as QBlade, Simulink, and RETScreen. Several different parameters will be required for these simulation models to run in order to test performance, capacity and efficiency of the proposed hybrid system. To decide which regions are suitable for the hybrid system, it will be necessary to analyze available wind and tide records from NIWA, and online databases such as GLOBAL ATLAS. This next phase of research will aim to create optimized scenarios for the hybrid model by considering the effect of wind and water speed on performance. After deciding which region and scenarios are suitable, it will also be necessary to evaluate the costs and returns of a hybrid system. This final phase will be performed using the RETScreen simulation model.

Universities and academic institutions play a very crucial role in nation development through the production of highly competent manpower. The eight universities in New Zealand have been recognized as some of the top academic institutions in the world. However, the rankings from different international organizations are declining and are hardly likely to rise. Government policies in funding allocation are being blamed for the universities’ regress as they operate with an insufficient amount of funds. This study uses the Malmquist Productivity Index model to examine the technical efficiency, technological change, and productivity performance of the eight universities. This model uses a variety of inputs (number of academic and non-academic staff and total enrolment) and outputs (number of degree and postgraduate graduates, total graduates, and total operating revenue from the Equivalent Full-Time Student (EFTS) funding system and the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF), etc.) obtained for the period 2013–2018. The overall results show that the average catch-up and frontier-shift efficiencies of the universities are roughly in a “no-change” scenario, meaning that the universities did not make any progress over these years. The Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) also shows a stable result, with average final values slightly higher than 1, wherein only five universities reached an actual productivity score of 1. It is recommended that the universities improve their internal factors, including personnel, equipment, facilities, and student services, while taking accounts of external aspects, such as rapid growth in technological environments and innovations, to achieve sustainable organizational progress and improved productivity. The re-assessment of government policies for funding allocation is also suggested. This research paper offers insights into the New Zealand universities’ productivity performances for the past few years. This could be used as a reference for other purposes.

The unit root hypothesis owes much to the work of Dickey and Fuller and has gained momentum since the seminal contribution of Perron (1989), who introduced the idea of structural breaks in unit root tests. In a recent study Sen (2003), extending the work of Zivot and Andrews (1992), recommends the F-test statistic for a unit root in the presence of a structural change in the economy. The central aim of this paper is to apply the Sen test to tourist arrivals to Fiji. The idea behind this exercise is to identify the year of the structural break and, more importantly, to examine whether the break has had a permanent or temporary effect on tourist arrivals in Fiji. Among our key results, we find that visitor arrivals in Fiji from Australia, New Zealand and the USA are stationary, implying that shocks have a temporary effect.

This audit of airway incidents was conducted over six months in 12 tertiary level hospitals across Australia and New Zealand. During that time, 131,233 patients had airway management and 111 reports were submitted (incidence 0.08%). The airway incidents included a combination of difficult airway management (83), oxygen desaturation (58), aspiration (19), regurgitation (14), laryngospasm (16), airway bleeding (10), bronchospasm (5) and dental injury (4), which gave a total of 209 events in 111 reports. Most incidents occurred during general anaesthesia (GA; 83.8%) and normal working hours (81.1%). Forty-three percent were associated with head and neck surgery and 12.6% with upper abdominal procedures. Of these patients, 52% required further medical treatment or additional procedures and 16.2% required unplanned admission to an intensive care unit or a high dependency unit. A total of 31.5% of patients suffered from temporary harm and 1.8% from permanent harm. There was one death. The factors associated with a high relative risk (RR) of an airway incident included American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status (ASA PS) (ASA PS 2 versus 1, RR 1.75; ASA PS 3 versus 1, RR 3.56; ASA PS 4 versus 1, RR 6.1), and emergency surgery (RR 2.16 compared with elective). Sedation and monitored anaesthesia care were associated with lower RRs (RR 0.49 and RR 0.73 versus GA, respectively). Inadequate airway assessment, poor judgement and poor planning appeared to be contributors to these events. Future teaching and research should focus on these areas to further improve airway management and patient safety.

The tourism sector is now New Zealand’s number one export earner, contributing 17.4 percent to New Zealand’s total exports of goods and services [1]. In addition, the sector directly employs 8.4 percent of New Zealand’s workforce and a further 6.1 percent are indirectly employed [2]. Given the obvious importance of hospitality and tourism to both the national economy and local communities, one would expect that a potential career in the industry would be something for a young person to aspire to. Sadly, this is not the case, and recent research has found that much of the poor perception of a career in hospitality and tourism stems from the delivery of hospitality and tourism education in New Zealand secondary schools [3]. In the New Zealand secondary school curriculum, secondary students gain New Zealand’s Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) by working towards a combination of achievement or unit standards. The Ministry of Education is the only developer of achievement standards, which are derived from the achievement objectives of the New Zealand Curriculum. Unit standards are developed by industry training organisations [4]. Both hospitality and tourism are deemed to be ‘vocational’ rather than ‘academic’ subjects in the NCEA structure and are delivered as unit standards. In a review of the list of approved subjects for University Entrance (UE) in 2011, only subjects delivered as achievement standards were eligible, hence the removal of hospitality and tourism after the revisions came into effect in 2014 [5]. Students are often introduced to the study of hospitality and tourism at secondary school and therefore their early perceptions of a potential career are formed at this stage. These perceptions can be influenced by several factors, including the position that studying hospitality and tourism does not prepare students for further or higher education as effectively as other subjects might. Criticisms of hospitality and tourism as secondary school subjects include that the curriculum lacks both serious and relevant content and academic rigour. The idea that hospitality and tourism classes are used as a ‘dumping ground’ for the less academically able students is damning. The attitudes of teachers, career advisors, school management and parents also play a significant role in the development of a positive or negative perception of the industry, with some actively discouraging students’ interest. The removal of hospitality and tourism as UE approved subjects has only contributed to this poor perception both by students and the larger community, including parents [3]. There is an evident disparity between the importance of hospitality and tourism to the economy and local communities, and the perception of a career in the industry. Tourism Industry Aotearoa’s People and Skills 2025 report [6] identifies that an extra 36,000 full-time equivalent workers (approx. 47,000 jobs) could be required to service the visitor economy by 2025. The current delivery of hospitality and tourism education in secondary schools does nothing to enhance the perception of the industry, but instead contributes to its struggle for recognition and credibility. To address this disparity, there is an urgent need for discussion and strategic planning by all stakeholders. The government’s current review of the education system, including NCEA, provides this opportunity. Corresponding author Helen Andreassen can be contacted at helen.andeassen@aut.ac.nz References (1) Tourism New Zealand. About the Industry, 2018. https://www.tourismnewzealand.com/about/about-the-industry/ (accessed Mar 8, 2018). (2) Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE). New Zealand Tourism Dashboard, 2018. https://mbienz.shinyapps.io/tourism_dashboard_prod/ (accessed Mar 8, 2018). (3) Roberts, M. D.; Andreassen, H.; O’Donnell, D.; O’Neill, S.; Neill, L. (2018). Tourism Education in New Zealand’s Secondary Schools: The Teachers’ Perspective. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/10963758.2017.1413380 (4) New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). Standards, 2018. http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/understanding-ncea/how-ncea-works/standards/ (accessed Apr 26, 2018). (5) New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). Processes for Maintaining the Approved Subjects List for University Entrance. http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications-standards/awards/university-entrance/processes-for-maintaining-the-approved-subjects-list-for-university-entrance/ (accessed Jun 12, 2018). (6) Tourism Industry Aotearoa. People & Skills 2025, 2015. http://www.tourism2025.org.nz/assets/Uploads/People-Skills-2025.pdf (accessed Mar 8, 2018).

AbstractWe conduct a contingent valuation investigation of the preference of international migrants for better home country institutional quality. Our study uses contingent valuation questions in a survey of 1.6% of Vietnamese adult migrants living in New Zealand (NZ) in 2016 to establish the compensating differentials that make those migrants indifferent between residing in NZ and returning to Viet Nam (VN) in hypothetical scenarios. We find that the estimated willingness to pay for an incremental unit improvement in institutional quality in VN is, on average, about NZD 80 per week (approximately 33% of the average weekly wage in VN in PPP terms for the same period), and positively associated with the respondents’ age and the perceived importance of institutional quality in VN to their repatriation intentions. This study underscores the importance of institutional quality to migration decisions by showing that migrants are willing to trade-off part of their regular income for better home country institutional quality.

In New Zealand and Australia, until recently, neuropsychiatric patients with disorders like Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, or Huntington’s disease were generally treated in state institutions, and there has been an axiomatic shift to short-stay inpatient units and community management, often with insufficient resources. This chapter explores the provision of adult neuropsychiatric services in the Australasian public health sectors and the current inadequacies in its planning frameworks. Divided by region, the facets of the main neuropsychiatric bodies in each are explored such as the Neuropsychiatric Institute (NPI) in New South Wales and the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) Neuropsychiatry Unit. While there are a number of centres in Australasia that satisfy the ‘hub’ requirement of the ‘hub and spoke’ model recommended for the implementation of neuropsychiatric services, the ‘spokes’ are inconsistently developed, leading to patchy provision across the countries.