I'm a NZer and not a doomer at all, and certainly not compared to what's happening elsewhere.
It seems to me NZ's main problems are ones it has had for a long time (housing, inequality, gangs, drugs), some of them are getting better (tech industry), and the stuff I like is still good (tramping, food, environment, sane politics).
Wages for local NZ companies are mostly bad. In spite of that, we are breeding more and more successful companies for reasons I can only guess at. You have a much better chance of finding interesting work than used to be the case.
But the untold story of tech work in NZ is that working remotely for good wages is rapidly getting easier. I started the Mozilla NZ office in 2007 and we were paid adequately, because back then HR didn't have a firm "local cost of labour" policy. Since then I've seen friends find remote work at other companies to get paid a lot more than they would locally for the same job. Zapier is a good one. We can all see that remote work is trending steeply upward in general; it doesn't always translate into location-insensitive pay policies, but sometimes it does.
"everything I dislike about it" is not a short list for me either, but that means there's more that we can fix!
Canadians have a reputation for saying "sorry", let's give NZ a reputation for saying "thank you".
If I stayed in Switzerland (where I was born, but have no citizenship because parents weren't resident), I would have to join the army and kill foreigners. Same in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Austria... many otherwise nice countries still apply conscription, and I'm a pacifist.
People who want to make more money choose to move away to Australia, London, or California. Likewise in Kaohsiung, career-minded people move to Taipei or Hong Kong. The Immigration department is trying to alter that by preferentially issuing visas to rich people, but that's not how this works - it'll just increase inequality, and the government won't even make more money in taxes because most rich people find loopholes and tax havens anyway.
People who choose to move to New Zealand usually have something more worthwhile in life to hope for :)
What foreigners are people in the Swiss or Taiwanese army killing!?
If you move to NZ, I hope you're earning a lot of money. Everything is expensive. Housing especially - though you're used to that to an extent if you know Taipei.
many otherwise nice countries still apply conscription
It may be the case that it is a necessary condition for remaining a nice country. At least if their neighbors aren't always so nice.
Most civilized countries with universal conscription allow you to do unarmed service (military support tasks) or civil service. In addition there's usually plenty of wiggle room to avoid the conscription altogether: health reasons (or excuses), being a member of certain religions, delaying/avoiding/hiding, or just plain refusing.
Comments
Why?
I'm a real doomer when it comes to NZ. Everything I liked about it is disappearing and everything I dislike about it gets worse.
I'm a NZer and not a doomer at all, and certainly not compared to what's happening elsewhere.
It seems to me NZ's main problems are ones it has had for a long time (housing, inequality, gangs, drugs), some of them are getting better (tech industry), and the stuff I like is still good (tramping, food, environment, sane politics).
What sort of tech wages do you see here?
Wages for local NZ companies are mostly bad. In spite of that, we are breeding more and more successful companies for reasons I can only guess at. You have a much better chance of finding interesting work than used to be the case.
But the untold story of tech work in NZ is that working remotely for good wages is rapidly getting easier. I started the Mozilla NZ office in 2007 and we were paid adequately, because back then HR didn't have a firm "local cost of labour" policy. Since then I've seen friends find remote work at other companies to get paid a lot more than they would locally for the same job. Zapier is a good one. We can all see that remote work is trending steeply upward in general; it doesn't always translate into location-insensitive pay policies, but sometimes it does.
"everything I dislike about it" is not a short list for me either, but that means there's more that we can fix!
Canadians have a reputation for saying "sorry", let's give NZ a reputation for saying "thank you".
If I stayed in Switzerland (where I was born, but have no citizenship because parents weren't resident), I would have to join the army and kill foreigners. Same in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Austria... many otherwise nice countries still apply conscription, and I'm a pacifist.
People who want to make more money choose to move away to Australia, London, or California. Likewise in Kaohsiung, career-minded people move to Taipei or Hong Kong. The Immigration department is trying to alter that by preferentially issuing visas to rich people, but that's not how this works - it'll just increase inequality, and the government won't even make more money in taxes because most rich people find loopholes and tax havens anyway.
People who choose to move to New Zealand usually have something more worthwhile in life to hope for :)
What foreigners are people in the Swiss or Taiwanese army killing!?
If you move to NZ, I hope you're earning a lot of money. Everything is expensive. Housing especially - though you're used to that to an extent if you know Taipei.
I was in Kaohsiung, where my rent was once as low as 3500 NTD per month = 45 NZD per week :D
Here in Auckland I'm currently paying 130 NZD per week for a room in a house shared with 3 others, about 15 mins bike ride from the office.
I had a lovely time in Kaohsiung. I thought it was the most beautiful city in the country by far, much nicer than Taipei.
Heard the pollution is pretty bad though. And the driving was even worse than Taipei.
It may be the case that it is a necessary condition for remaining a nice country. At least if their neighbors aren't always so nice.
Most civilized countries with universal conscription allow you to do unarmed service (military support tasks) or civil service. In addition there's usually plenty of wiggle room to avoid the conscription altogether: health reasons (or excuses), being a member of certain religions, delaying/avoiding/hiding, or just plain refusing.
This sounds like my experience as an Australian. I'm not really sure where else I'd go, though.
You could try regional Australia, like Hobart, or Western Australia:D
Everyone is a doomer about their own country. Grass is always greener on the other side.