I know many of you will be distracted by the school holidays when this newsletter arrives - some with the promise of a holiday, and others counting the days until the kids can go back to class. For many, this will be their last term and a rush to make some very big decisions. We're all aware that not enough of those decisions will lead  towards the skills that are most needed. Thankfully, programmes like Engineering Education-to-Employment (E2E) are being launched to address that.

It's also a good time to think about how you can upskill your own staff and business. Again, there are some great resources being made available, like the Open Access Labs and National Testing facilities. I'd encourage you to take advantage of them.

One last note that our Exporters Survey will be closing in the next few days, so if you're an exporting manufacturer and haven't shared your thoughts yet, have your say now.

Catherine Beard
027 463 3212 or cbeard@businessnz.org.nz

The manufacturing sector experienced its strongest level of activity for five months, according to the latest BNZ - BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI).

The seasonally adjusted PMI for August was 56.5. This was 3.0 points higher than July, and means the sector has now been in expansion every month over the last two years. More...

The Engineering Education-to-Employment (E2E) Programme has been launched to try and attract more students into engineering. The team has put a lot of work into understanding the barriers and the four key areas they need to tackle. Now they need your help to make it happen. If you've got any good stories of work you're doing with universities and polytechnics, ITO's and schools, let us know so we can share them with other manufacturers. Learn more about the programme here and read their latest newsletter for upcoming events.

NZ Product Accelorator has got some great new facilities up and running recently, which are offering some great opportunities for manufacturers. Open Access Laboratories is a collaborative facility focussed on exploration, investigation, prototyping and testing. The new National Testing Register covers a wide range of product performance testing, materials analysis and characterisation, as well as materials processing and manufacturing facilities.

The All-of-Government (AoG) solution for the supply of office consumables to MBIE is due to expire in July 2015 and a request for proposals (RFP) has been published through the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS). If you are a supplier of one or more of the five categories of products, either nationally or regionally, there may be an opportunity for you to bid. To read the RFP document, submit questions and subscribe to updates, you will  need to login to GETS (or register if you don’t already have a login). More...

An interesting summary of merchandise trade statistics for New Zealand for year ending June 2014 has been released. It shows the phenomenal growth in dairy (52%) and log exports in particular (37%), but a harder time for high tech manufacturing exporters whose export value reduced by 4.8%. No doubt the high tech manufacturing exporters were hit by the much higher NZ dollar, particularly as the kiwi rose against the Aussy dollar. Having said that the volume of high-tech exports as a % of the total stayed roughly the same at 17%, so hopefully any sustained drop in the dollar will bode very well for these exporters. If we add to that the fact that manufacturers have been busy investing in new plant and capital equipment (up 9% on an annual basis) then the future could be much more profitable and these exporters could be very resilient going forward. Read the full summary here.

If you're thinking about taking on an apprentice, now is the time to do it. New apprentices/trainees who sign up for training before 31 December 2014 are able to apply for $1000 towards the cost of tools and off job course costs, or $2000 for those training in priority trades areas. Employers are eligible for an equal payment. More...

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