Half of workers doubt they could find a new job
Plus: Kiwi home admin app overtakes Tinder and Hinge in the NZ app store
Happy Tuesday!
Kia ora Caffeinators,
Old fashioned Daily Shot this morning which is entirely text based but let me know if you enjoyed the video cameo from me yesterday.
For now, get stuck into a newsletter with a nice mix of new data to parse, a founder to celebrate, a pod pick to listen to on your way to work and massive money moves at the frontier of energy.
Here’s what’s brewing in your Daily Shot:
New report paints mixed picture of SME and startup job market
Pod Pick: The NBR Podcast with Simon Shepherd - Where is NZ at with the AIP Visa?
Event: Caffeine’s ‘I Wish I Knew’ Series With Lara Henderson from PURE MAMA
Kiwi home admin app overtakes Tinder and Hinge in the NZ app store
Nuclear fusion company CFS closes titanic $863m Series B2 funding round
As always, thank you to everyone who has upgraded to a paid subscription or simply recommended Caffeine to friends and whānau. We couldn’t do any of this without you.
Finn and the CAFFEINE team
New report paints mixed picture of SME and startup job market: We love a Tuesday morning report here at Caffeine and our friends over at Employment Hero have dropped a fascinating one focused entirely on SMEs (including startups). While we often get macro level data of the economy but this is the only one focused entirely on the SME sector, powered by 12 months of aggregated and anonymised real-time data from over 350,000 businesses and 2.5 million verified employees globally. It paints a mixed picture of crashing confidence but signs of life underpinning that dire sentiment.
Nearly half of employees worldwide (45%) say they would not feel confident finding a new role within three months if they lost their current job. In New Zealand specifically, 53% lack confidence, underscoring that even with modest job growth, employees feel squeezed.
Key insights from the annual report:
Casual work is on the rise, but pay is stagnant
Casual jobs are surging, but pay is collapsing. In July 2025, casual employment rose 0.74%, but average hourly pay fell 1.3%, according to Employment Hero data. Compare that with full-time workers whose pay rose 4.6%, or part-timers at 5.7%, and a clear imbalance emerges. Casual work is absorbing labour market pressure, but it’s not protecting workers from inflation or insecurity.
Youth employment: rising but precarious
SMEs are increasingly turning to younger staff, with under-18 hiring leading the charge. This mirrors the global “new blueprint for work,” where Gen Z are financially pragmatic but also the most mobile, willing to switch jobs, industries, or even countries in search of growth. However, in New Zealand as elsewhere, many of these roles are casual or low-paid, raising questions about sustainability.
South Island drives national employment expansion
Otago's 19.4% surge makes it the fastest-growing SME job market in the country this year. Regionally, SME employment growth is being driven by the South Island, which recorded 5.4% year on year gains compared with just 0.6% in the North Island. Otago has emerged as an unexpected hotspot, fuelled by tourism recovery, agriculture, and regional investment. This regional dynamism reflects broader global trends where smaller markets and non-capital cities are shouldering more of the employment rebound.
Weak confidence in the market
Confidence, however, remains weak. In New Zealand, 62% of workers said they now prioritise job security over ambition, higher than Australia’s 57%. Older workers and part-timers feel this most acutely, with 64% of over-55s doubting they could find another role quickly. Yet those who started a new job in the past 12 months were 33% more likely to feel optimistic, suggesting mobility remains a key lever for restoring confidence.
Small businesses under pressure
For SMEs, the pressure extends to skills and training. Just over half (52%) of employees believe their employer provides good training and upskilling opportunities, with older workers the least likely to agree. This aligns with global findings that small businesses, while central to employment, often lack the resources to provide consistent development pathways.
Check out the full annual report here.
Pod Pick: The NBR Podcast with Simon Shepherd - Where is NZ at with the AIP Visa? - Changes to the so called ‘golden visa’ category have been championed by many in the startup community (including us) as a great incentive to get some of the wealthiest, most well connected and successful people in the world to move their money and minds to our shores. Even before the foreign home buyer ban was lifted, it had sparked a big uptick in applications and promised dollars from wealthy foreign investors seeking a New Zealand investor visa and planning migration to New Zealand. Simon Shepherd over at NBR has done a great job checking in on where the visa stands and asks the important question of what happens when investors get residency and want their money back? Listen here (unpaywalled).
Event: ‘I Wish I Knew’ With Lara Henderson from PURE MAMA: Building a company isn’t a single event – it’s a long game. One with messy middles, unexpected pivots, and the odd “what now?” at 2am.
Join us for our ‘I Wish I Knew’ series, featuring raw and real conversations with successful Kiwi founders who’ve taken the hits, made the calls, and kept showing up. This is about the stuff they wish they knew earlier – the kind of lessons that only come from doing the work (and a few things going sideways).
This event is for founders, early-stage teams and leaders who are serious about growing. We screen all registrations to make sure appropriate criteria is met.
More on our speaker:
When Lara and her sister launched PURE MAMA, growth didn’t come from one big break. It was the accumulation of small plays, sampling, hustling and testing channels, that laid the foundations. Those moves mattered, but over time, they learned that to really scale, the brand needed bigger, more strategic distribution partnerships.
From the start, PURE MAMA was bootstrapped. Both sisters went all in, selling properties, taking family loans, and putting everything they had safeguarded on the line. The sacrifices were significant, but they believed in the vision, and failure was never an option.
The reality of scaling a consumer brand is that proof of concept comes at a cost. Growth doesn’t come from quick wins or chasing trends. It’s built on distribution channels that can stand the test of time and partnerships that deliver both credibility and reach.
For PURE MAMA, that pivotal partnership was MECCA. Landing on their shelves provided immediate authority and opened doors internationally. Today, the vision for PURE MAMA is clear. This is not a trend-driven brand. The focus is on building a heritage business that can compete alongside global beauty giants. That means thinking big, forever hustling, and protecting brand credibility at every step.
The “I Wish I Knew” lesson Lara shares is simple: bet on yourself. Be prepared to sacrifice and think long term. And if you want to win on the global stage, aim straight for the top.
Remember, this event is FREE for Caffeinators - make sure you use CAFFEINEFRIENDS promo code at checkout and feel free to invite a friend.
Date and time
Tue, 28 Oct 2025 5:15 PM - 7:00 PM NZDT
Location
+MORE offices, Mount Maunganui
155 Maunganui Road Tauranga, Bay of Plenty Region 3116
Kiwi home admin app overtakes Tinder and Hinge in the NZ app store: We’ve done stories on Caffeine before about the world of project management and its importance to the world of fintech, SaaS and AI but this is a great story about a founder who applied some of that same thinking to the more everyday but essential project management of the household.
As PAM co-founder and mum Nicole Retter realised, there are 101 project management tools for businesses but nothing purpose-built for the real project managers - parents.
The inspiration for PAM came directly from Retter’s own life. Coming out of Covid with two preschoolers, an injured husband who couldn’t use his arms, and a demanding new marketing role, she was drowning in family logistics: missed birthday parties, forgotten swim gear, double-backing for errands. Talking with friends, she realised she wasn’t alone - and that there was no purpose-built tool to reduce the invisible mental load weighing families down, particularly mothers.
Soft launched in February, PAM uses AI to read the household comms (this could be an email, a screenshot or even a crumpled birthday invite) which then becomes an event, a reminder to RSVP, a nudge to buy a gift or a note to pack a costume - all handled automatically and assigned to the appropriate family member.
It’s mothers who carry the lion’s share of household logsitics: 90% are the primary coordinators of family admin and 66% report being very or extremely stressed by it.
Recently PAM hit #2 in the Apple App Store Lifestyle rankings in NZ - ahead of dating giants Tinder and Hinge and also beating Pinterest and Google home.
With its first funding round nearing completion, PAM is preparing to take its solution worldwide.
Nuclear fusion company CFS closes titanic $863m Series B2 funding round: Well the nuclear conversation has been bubbling up even on our shores recently so I thought I’d finish on a parting shot highlighting some of the major moves at the frontier of this sector. The world’s largest private fusion company, US-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems, closed a staggering $863m USD Series B2 in the past week, with the pledge to begin deploying its reactor in Japan in the late 2030s and 40s.
It’s the largest round closed by deep tech and energy companies since their last one in 2021. Always fun to break your own record. The international fusion space is certainly heating up but it’s wild to see how much of that energy is directed at this one company. To date, CFS has raised close to $3 billion, nearly one-third of the total capital invested in private fusion companies worldwide.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Want to get in touch with a news tip, bit of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co
Go PAM