unemployment

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Farrar vs the facts

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, November 9th, 2009 - 36 comments

I’ve never quite understood why David Farrar, who is after all paid to do statistical work, insists on performing transparent statistical tricks on his blog. Yesterday, he did a post with figures on the number of 15-19 year olds with jobs. He argued that it showed removing the youth rate and giving everyone the same […]

Unemployment up, productivity up

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, November 9th, 2009 - 9 comments

Like here in New Zealand, unemployment continues to climb in America. And one of the results is soaring productivity. (sources: 1,2) But wait, isn’t higher productivity good? In normal circumstances, yes, when it comes about from capital deepening (ie businesses investing in equipment rather than taking profits) or a more educated workforce. But productivity will […]

16,000 more jobs lost

Written By: - Date published: 12:40 pm, November 5th, 2009 - 14 comments

The number of employed people fell from 2,170,000 to 2,154,000 in the three months to September*. There are 54,000 fewer people in jobs than December last year. 16,000 jobs were lost in three months – 240 per work day. Unemployment rose another 0.5% to 6.5%, the first time it has been that high since National […]

Exchange rates, Kiwisaver, breaking promises, & the art of doing nothing

Written By: - Date published: 2:35 pm, October 31st, 2009 - 8 comments

A range of interesting political/economic comment today in the Herald: Fran O’Sullivan joins the left-wing and groups like Federated Farmers in calling on the Key Government to sort out monetary policy. At the moment, the Reserve Bank is tasked solely with controlling inflation with interest rates as its only real tool, while the exchange is […]

Aussie Minister shows guts, foresight and concern; ours… not so much

Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, October 25th, 2009 - 31 comments

Australia’s Federal Industry Minister Kim Carr has criticized Bridgestone’s closure of its Australian and New Zealand operations and the 1000 redundancies it’ll bring. Carr is looking at ways to alleviate some of the unemployment problems for the laid-off aussie workers but criticizes Bridgestone for pulling out (and no doubt relocating to countries where workers get […]

Paula, honestly, put away the champagne

Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 2 comments

So, in the week to October 2, 1950 people signed up to the dole and 2040 went off it. Time to celebrate according to Paula Bennett – unemployment’s going down! But one thing we know about Bennett is she doesn’t have a good grasp of detail – in fact, she has to have everything reduced […]

Put away the champagne, Paula

Written By: - Date published: 3:42 pm, October 5th, 2009 - 40 comments

Paula Bennett: “The number of people needing an Unemployment Benefit has slowed significantly over the last month, says the Minister for Social Development and Employment.” Here, let me correct that for you: “The growth in the number of people needing an Unemployment Benefit has slowed over the last month but still increased by 1,500 or […]

Crime leaps along with unemployment

Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, October 1st, 2009 - 29 comments

The Police statistics out today show the crime rate continues to follow the unemployment rate. With unemployment on the rise, so is crime. Recorded crimes per person leapt 2.8% in the June year, as unemployment climbed from 4% to 6%. It’s obviously not a coincidence. Crime is a symptom of a society in distress, the […]

Informative journalism

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, September 25th, 2009 - 4 comments

Colin Espiner: “For some reason that I don’t quite understand, unemployment usually continues to rise at the end of recessions, and there’s normally a lag time of something like a year before it falls.” I can help with that one. When a down-turn starts, employers generally don’t know how bad or how long it will […]

Redundancy protection – it’s only fair

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, September 11th, 2009 - 20 comments

A coalition of unions, Labour, the Greens, the Maori Party, and community groups has come together to support Darian Fenton’s Redundancy Protection Bill. There’s a website, facebook group, petition, and other ways you can get involved. The Bill, due to be debated later this month, would set a minimum level of redundancy protection for all […]

Don’t look for help from the bosses’ party

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, August 25th, 2009 - 21 comments

Red Alert continues to get better and better. Beaumont’s latest is one of those powerful stories that deserves to be told, and Red Alert provides the platform. I’m going to be cheeky and reproduce it in full: Today at a fleamarket in Panmure I spoke to a young couple with a young daughter.  The young man […]

More than just a job

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 am, August 24th, 2009 - 76 comments

Recently, Bill English has been trying to make excuses for not doing anything about the spiralling numbers of unemployed. He says that the practically full employment* of recent years was a mirage and people who are becoming unemployed should know “their jobs were unsustainable“. It’s similar to what he was saying in 1999, when he […]

Recreating the reserve army of labour

Written By: - Date published: 5:48 am, August 13th, 2009 - 56 comments

Unemployment has shot up to 133,500, nearly doubling in 18 months. But that’s not the whole story. The official ‘unemployed’ are only the people without work who looking for work and able to start now. Add to that the ‘jobless’, people who want work but are not actively looking (because they’re discouraged or there’s none […]

Unemployment back to English’s ‘realistic’ level

Written By: - Date published: 5:11 am, August 7th, 2009 - 33 comments

Who said this? “if we continue with National’s policies over the next three years we will be able to create another 115,000 jobs and bring unemployment under 6%. These are realistic targets…Labour’s claim that it can bring the unemployment rate down to 3% is also a hoax” It was Bill English in 1999. Of course, […]

A real recession policy

Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, August 6th, 2009 - 13 comments

Darien Fenton’s minimum redundancy bill has been drawn from the ballot and is likely to go before the house in the next two weeks. In my opinion implementing a minimum redundancy is one of the most significant ways we can reduce the effects of the recession on working Kiwis because it offers a buffer for […]

Unemployment hits 6%

Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, August 6th, 2009 - 22 comments

Stats NZ has just released the unemployment figures for the June Quarter. Unemployment has hit 6%. That’s 138,000 people out of work. We’re going to need more than a cycleway to get ourselves out of this one.

Less work, less pay for Kiwis

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 am, August 6th, 2009 - 5 comments

Today the Household Labour Force Survey, which includes the official measure of unemployment, will be out. The headline number is expected to be around 5.6%, up from record lows below 4% just nine months ago. The HLFS has a few limitations though. It only measures the percentage of people who are ‘in the work-force’ (ie in work […]

Good potential, will it deliver?

Written By: - Date published: 6:04 pm, August 2nd, 2009 - 31 comments

17,000 youth jobs. That’s what Key has promised with a $152 million programme (some of this is existing money). Like Colin Espiner says “ambitious plan”. We’ll see if he manages to deliver. The record so far has been big promises and bigger failure to deliver – the money hasn’t been spent and the jobs haven’t […]

Get ready for more over-promise, under-deliver

Written By: - Date published: 4:39 pm, August 1st, 2009 - 15 comments

Tomorrow John Key will be announcing policies on youth unemployment. Looks like rehashing of the already announced Youth Guarantee and probably something more. Whatever Key comes up with it will be tinkering around the edges. The Nats aren’t willing to spend any money and they don’t have any big ideas. If the cycleway, the tax-cuts, […]

Nice try, Roger

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, July 28th, 2009 - 14 comments

Sir Roger Douglas has a go at my post that looks at the GDP per person gap between Australia and New Zealand and concludes that, since it doubled during the neoliberal revolution of the late 80s/early 90s, implementing more neoliberal policies is unlikely to close that gap. His first complaint is that my numbers and his […]

Show-pony

Written By: - Date published: 3:50 pm, July 23rd, 2009 - 32 comments

Y’know, as John Key tries to get stuck into Phil Goff, I think it’s time for a quick recall of recent history. Key is a man who lied directly to the New Zealand people about his Tranz Rail shares. Key is a man who hid from the public every time he was asked about substantive […]

Phil, get your shit together

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, July 23rd, 2009 - 41 comments

Phil Goff. Please get your shit together. This latest fiasco of running up a guy who owns several properties as a case of a Kiwi hurt by the recession is just inexcusable. I don’t doubt the dude’s having cashflow problems. But using him as your poster boy was only ever going to backfire. There are […]

It’s not fair, get over it, get it right

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, July 22nd, 2009 - 83 comments

The ludicrous attacks by the media on Goff over the dole scheme show that this is not an even playing field. Key is allowed to lie again and again. Ministers are allowed to shirk their responsibilities. The fact that 1300 more people on the dole each week barely gets a look in. The journos are […]

Good jab, now land some punches

Written By: - Date published: 5:04 am, July 21st, 2009 - 88 comments

It was excellent to see Phil Goff laying down the gauntlet to Key yesterday. He announced Labour’s policy to temporarily relax partner means testing for the dole and promised a recession response package. On the same day, Key’s big achievement was noting the Hillary family had settled their dispute with Auckland museum. Goff is saying […]

Recession’s ‘rough edges’ hit families – no help from govt

Written By: - Date published: 4:20 pm, July 20th, 2009 - 48 comments

Labour leader Phil Goff has called for a temporary relaxation of the rules for getting the dole. Too many Kiwis on low and middle incomes are losing their jobs but are not able to get any assistance from the Government (despite having paid taxes for years) because their partner has a modest income. John Key […]

Key grins blankly, shrugs shoulders

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, July 15th, 2009 - 42 comments

I was going to do a fisking of Key’s ‘major speech‘ today. But there’s nothing to fisk, no substance, no ideas, no vision. There’s just endless recycling of the same old Crosby-Textor lines and waffle. In fact, there’s one section that is just a bunch of rehashed lines – one after the other. You get […]

The danger of Key’s low wage economy

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, July 14th, 2009 - 47 comments

As you know, things are tough in the job market at the moment. The firm figures won’t be out until later this month but unemployment has grown by probably well over 50,000 so far this year. The number of the dole has shot from 37,000 in March to 50,000 now and is growing at 1200 a […]

‘Frontline’ cut for phantom savings

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, July 8th, 2009 - 9 comments

MAF Biosecurity is set to cut 60 jobs – 30 of them filled. It claims the fall in imports means it’s over budget and doesn’t need so many staff. I’ve got a few problems with that. Let’s assume these 30 workers about to get the sack are on the average wage ($48,000). The savings from […]

Excuses excuses

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 15 comments

First, it was ‘we’re going to do everything we can to keep Kiwis in jobs’ Next, it was ‘yeah, OK, we haven’t done anything significant to keep people in jobs (we borrowed a couple of small programmes from the Greens and the unions, though) but who cares? Look, other countries have more unemployed, so, um, […]

Just laugh in their faces

Written By: - Date published: 5:39 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 26 comments

National is overseeing the most dramatic rise in unemployment on record (yep, 2000 a week is more than the 1980s, more than the 1990s). They’ve got no answers, no ideas. All they can talk about is what Goff said 20 years ago and laugh. Like 2000 people a week losing their livelihoods is some kind […]

Out of her depth

Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 13 comments

I wonder if Patrick Gower could keep a straight face while writing this: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has dropped her additional Disability Issues portfolio because Prime Minister John Key wants her to concentrate on the growing numbers of people losing their jobs. Note his phrasing. Not ‘concentrate on reducing the growing number of people […]