A closer look at the Household Labourforce Survey reveals startling facts: in the four years since the ‘brighter future’ began, in which time the adult population grew by 156,000, the number of fulltime jobs went down by 700. The number of part-time jobs is up a little – 25,000 – but 31,000 more part-timers want full-time work. All up, 1 in 6 Kiwis are looking for work.
Here’s the table for Kiwis who are working or looking for work (it’s all adults over 15 except half a million retirees, 230,000 students, 170,000 stay-at-home parents, and a few others)
| September Quarter | 2008 | 2012 |
| In full-time work | 1,686,000 | 1,686,000 |
| Part-time not wanting more hours | 416,000 | 410,000 |
| Part-time and underemployed | 82,000 | 113,000 |
| Unemployed and on dole | 24,000 | 50,000 |
| Unemployed not on dole | 70,000 | 120,000 |
| Jobless but not unemployed | 86,000 | 124,000 |
In 2008, people on the dole, other unemployed, jobless, and underemployed was 1 in 9 of all those in the job market. That’s up to 1 in 6. The number of people who have as much work as they want has actually fallen by 6,000 while the number looking for work has ballooned by 145,000.
The failure to create fulltime work in particular also shows up in the number of unemployed who are looking for fulltime work – four years ago, that was 56,000. Today, it has nearly doubled to 108,000.
Remember, the recession ended 3 and a half years ago. And we’re still going backwards. Remember, we were promised 170,000 more jobs, and have haven’t appeared.
In a day or two, I’ll have a look at the demographics and regions worst hit by National’s jobs failure.
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