Mike's Minute: ACC and the work from home legal case

The ACC vs union work from home legal case is a good one and it became even better after the Westpac dispute in Australia last week.

There are two bits to these sorts of cases. One was the specific, as in what's in a contract, what's the wording, what have you agreed to and what haven't you agreed to.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Should NZ's secular stagnation be due to working-from-home....

Should NZ's secular stagnation be due to working-from-home, lack-of-meritocracy & endless Treaty debates, then we can forget economic growth.

The country does not appear to be in a cyclical down-turn. Of course, the PM and his Finance Minister are desperately praying that all we have been experiencing is just a typical "business cycle", and once interest rates come down things will turn. However, the evidence points more to a long-lasting slow-down, which attracts the name "secular stagnation" in economics.

Corey Smith: Is Remote Work Damaging People’s Social Skills?

A survey says yes – but there’s more to the story.

A recent survey of 1,000 people with fully remote jobs suggests that one in four people who work from home believe their social abilities have declined since switching to remote full-time. Now, these claims are self-identified, and the percentage of people reporting a decline is only 25%, 23% of whom have noticed only “somewhat” of a difference. Is this a big deal?

Max Salmon: Government tackles work from home

The Finance Minister this week announced a crackdown on public servants working from home. The push comes as part of a wider focus on productivity and efficiency-increasing measures from the government.

However, there is a small problem.