Working from home is an interesting experience – having to maintain a resemblance of discipline and focus while also not getting to stressed that maybe some work may take longer than usual because other coworkers are also working at home with their own set of issues. Unfortunately like many businesses at the moment there has been a sharp decline in turn over which has resulted in the need for the organisation I work for to look into cutting staff numbers but nothing is set in stone. The reason why I say, “nothing is set in stone’ is because there are a lot of ‘balls in air’ at the moment such as there being a meeting on Monday along with a Q&A at work which lines up with press conference by the government about opening up more of the economy with the eventual move to level 2 not to mention a potential for an announcement by government for further income support for employees or some other government programme.

Long story short the government will want to at least attempt to ensure that redundancies are kept to a minimum because a cycle of redundancies creates a death spiral that is very difficult to reverse once it starts – a decrease in spending due to the lack of disposable income with those who are still employed being tighter with their money just in case they lose their job which then ends up further exacerbating the situation further. It is better to support the existing economy via a wage support mechanism and the ability for businesses to refinance existing debt at a power interest rate which reduces the amount the business has to pay back then have that followed up by by creating jobs via public works projects – preferably ‘shovel ready’ projects such as expanding existing project such as bringing forward future projects or start working on projects that have been on the back burner, “it would be nice to have, but difficult to justify” (investment into the Wairarapa Connection or the high speed rail connection from Auckland to Hamilton by straightening tracks (to improve speed) as well as expanding electrification).

I think it is important at this moment not to get stressed – yes, easier said than done but it is easy for ones brain to start working over time dreaming up of all the worst case scenarios.