"Smart" urban planning to blame for land rationing and high housing costs. 

UPDATED: Auckland Council says it is already preparing to adjust its affordability plan.

New Zealand could face “social catastrophe” if thousands of workers are displaced by new technology and automation, the Maritime Union has warned.

The union has called for a “productivity dividend” from employers in order to spread the wealth created by new technology in the workplace.

Maritime Union of New Zealand general secretary Trevor Hanson said that the growing use of automated technology in the workplace could have harmful effects in a recession unless the profits were shared.

Businesses in New Zealand are using the recession and loosening labour market to “trade up” their workforces by removing unproductive workers, a new survey suggests.

Mercer’s Leading Through Unprecedented Times survey in May revealed that almost half of all Australian and New Zealand respondents plan to hire key talent while reducing their overall workforce for the rest of 2009.

Although 57% plan further workforce cuts in 2009, only 1.2% plan to make cuts of 10% or more.

And in the next six months nearly 46.5% plan to freeze salaries at 2008 levels.

Employers are getting the sharp end of the stick in personal grievance cases and it got worse in 2008, according to new research by the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern).

Analysis by David Lowe, employment services manager for the EMA, shows that more personal grievance cases were heard last year than ever before and employers were on the wrong end of most decisions.

“A record 521 personal grievances were heard in 2008, and in another new high, 67% of decisions favoured employees,” Mr Lowe says.