You’ve marked two important points related to employment law, but left off all other external influences that affect youth employment, such as the global financial crisis and resulting recession (depression?).
This graph, such as it is, really doesn’t convey any meaningful information.
The right is claiming that abolishing youth rates increased youth unemployment on the spurious logic that youth unemployment has risen since then.
Equally, the right claims that fire at will is helping young people into work.
the graph shows that using the right’s logic, fire at will has increased youth unemployment. Thereby, elegantly showing what a crock of shit the right’s logic is.
Since when has an economic policy that has been introduced into an economy had overnight results? The poster seems to think the graph would have climbed immediately if the claims of Key and the “Right” were true.
On the same basis, it would be equivalent to a rise in the minimum wage immediately introducing inflation. Or changes to the tax system immediately resulting in massively lower/higher tax takes.
From his graph it appears the youth unemployment was 6 months after the policy took effect, which seems pretty reasonable…..
Lanthanide thinks is stupid, what’s stupid is we have a whole global class of people who brag how much their companies are destroying resources, using oil, and how much faster they can do it if they get a tax cut, and when they do lie, we send them to jail for fraud. Imagine that, someone lies that they just order the destruction of rain forests and they didn’t losing millions of investors their blood money. We don’t need not frigging pollution control, no tax rises!
Madoff is a hero!
Debt is ravaging the culture, the society, the children, all to keep debotrs from having to pay up.
But don’t you realise Zetetic? Without youth rates and fire at will, it would have been so much worse for young New Zealanders. Just like in the 90s, wages would have been so much lower than they were if it weren’t for the fact that collective bargaining was completely undermined.
These right wing policies soften all those ‘blows’ the world throws at us. Of course we still feel the blows … but you just have to believe, Zetetic, you and I are always being saved from an even worse fate by these compassionately rational policies.
[I don’t generally like sarcasm, but at the moment it just seems right.]
It should say “Youth rates abolished” – not “introduced”.
Lanth, I think Z’s intent is to refute the argument that the abolition of youth rates caused the spike in youth unemployment, rather than to imply that there is any causative relationship between the fire at will law and youth unemployment.
Sure, that is shown by the graph. But I still think it is misleading.
Also, Zet’s comment after the graph is “Fire at will was meant to help young people into work, wasn’t it?”, if he was trying to draw attention to abolition of youth rates not increasing unemployment, then some mention of that in the comment would have made it much clearer.
so, what your saying is that zets graph is garbage and a weak attempt to deflect attention away from the fact that youth employment rose after the abolishment of youth rates? cool thought so.
someone has to read between the rails your thinking is on
of which the timing coincided with the lagging effect of employment figure reporting as result of the GFC maybe? no, that can’t be right, doesn’t fit with the labour party manifesto and current play book issued with each new post on the standard. Blighty, when you really understand economics, come back and argue with me.
to save you having to use your brain, if price for a good goes up, demand for that good goes down, unless there are no readily substitutable goods. ie margarine for butter. so in this case, with ceterus parabis applying as even though i know you will be sitting down, drooling over the large button keyboard, i still don’t want to floor you, Adults for youths. as basic as it gets, but first principles are first for a reason
If in red it’s suposed to be Your Rates Abolished the graph isn’t a good look, because from that time on the graph gradually climbs after a short lag – it would likely not be an instant effect.
A significant climb starts well before the employment trial period was introduced – and it’s increase after that could as easily be linked to the financial crash which is a more likely cause.
The whole graph looks amazingly like it charts the beginning of the financial wobbles in early 2008 followed by the collywobbles.
Why don’t you just show a chart of numbers of people whose employment has been terminated within 90 days of employment, that’s actually relevant to the point you’re trying to make.
“Why don’t you just show a chart of numbers of people whose employment has been terminated within 90 days of employment, that’s actually relevant to the point you’re trying to make.”
Because the National government, in their infinitesimal wisdom, decided that no such official statistics needed to be recorded. Presumably because that might show that the law was being exploited or not actually working properly, so it’s safer to simply say it is working as you expected and not risk any statistics saying otherwise.
Sounds like you’re missing the point – there shouldn’t be a rise at all, with all the spin that was put on this as making it easier to employ out of work bene’s inclusive of youth this graph should be spiralling down, not upward.
I love these charts of the day. How they can take a small sub-set of data, and then graph it in the most ideal timeframe, and then have people draw a conclusion.
In this case, we have the “Youth rates introduced”, which is stupid; it’s when they were abolished.
So it became harder to employ young people. That’s a fact.
Then we have the “fire at will”, which is nothing of the sort. But hey, suddenly the graph suggests that once the law was enacted, employers everywhere FIRED young employees.
Of course the law never gave them that power, only the power to dismiss NEW employees. The laws affect on employment rates should be positive, the biggest point of contestion were employee’s rights.
And finally, we have a graph titled fire-at-will, comparing the sub-section of youth unemployment vs a policy aimed at overall employment. But we don’t get that graph, just the youth subsection graph
I agree with Lanthanide etc above who see the obvious problems with the graph above.
The main problem is that factors such as global recessions far outshine the effect of 90 day employment laws etc. To tease out the impact the lessor variable has on unemployment, the much stronger effect first has to be removed through appropriate statistical methods(e.g. multiple regression). Quite often, when this is done, a completely different picture will emerge for the weaker variable.
‘To tease out the impact the lessor variable has on unemployment, the much stronger effect first has to be removed through appropriate statistical methods(e.g. multiple regression). Quite often, when this is done, a completely different picture will emerge for the weaker variable.’
Absolutely correct.
Then we have to go back one step further and determine what brought about the global financial crisis of 2008 (which is a euphemism for the start of the never-ending depression, of course).
It couldn’t possibly have been the peaking of oil extraction (which ocurred over 2005 to 2006) in combination with rapidly increasing demand for oil from China and India, could it? No, that far too connected with reality and far too scary. Let’s look for some esoteric explanation that can be fixed with minor tweaking of policy settings.
It will be interesting to see how much longer the bulk of the populace refuses to accept some fundamental truths, such as that without cheap oil the global economic system founders, and that when oil extraction goes into significant decline the global economic system will implode.
If anything, the graph points to the abolishment of youth rates as the driver for high youth unemployment. Sure, youth unemployment has risen since the 90 day probation bill was introduced, however the graph clearly shows that the upward trend started in Q3 2008 – Well before the 90 day bill was introduced. aside from the small kink at the time the probation bill was introduced, its a pretty solid upward trend until Q4 2009.
As far as I can see, the graph makes a pretty strong case for youth rates.
The graph doesn’t point anywhere you moron. That’s the whole point of the graph. There just isn’t enough information available to show anything but you’re here saying that it shows that the abolishment of youth rates caused the rise in youth unemployment.
As far as I can see, the graph makes a pretty strong case for youth rates.
So in other words you do not believe in a fair days wage for a fair days work ??
If you do believe that a fair days work, is worth a fair days pay. And those on the minimum wage are probably going to lose somewhere between 3 and 5 bucks an hour, out of a wage of 13 bucks per hour thats a cut of between 25% and 30%. Then under the fair days work, for a fair days wage. You then will also agree to take a paycut of between 25% and 30% without squealing?? No?? Oh but WE CAN HIRE A TEEN for less than we pay you. Oh and why not do you not realise that to drop the minimum youth rate to say 10 bucks an hour, means that ANY other rate above is probably due for the same cut, except of course the big bosses. They will get productivity bonuses for keeping the labour bill down, and even bigger bonuses for cutting said bill even further.
There is an old saying . Be careful what you wish for. You may just get it.
1. It also means that adults will more than likely always be chosen over teens for positions where there is a choice between the too.
2. “means that ANY other rate above is probably due for the same cut” – thats wrong. It is safe to assume that those adults on higher than the minimum wage are on that rate because they have experience in the role. Cutting the pay of your experienced staff is only going to end up harming your business in the long term, as said staff use their experience to get employment elsewhere.
Business owners are out to be successful – deliberately undermining your business just so you can rip off your staff is not something that most business owners would bother even thinking about.
But what usually happens is that the good, well run business who does employ people on a fair wage gets undercut by people who go for the lowest cost option.
Having a minimum wage at a reasonable rate levels the play field somewhat between good and bad employers. It means that the business needs to be run on a service basis more than a cost basis.
I’ve watched many a good business go because some jerk comes in and undercuts the market by only employing people on low wages.
I know there is a right wing argument that they are not a good business if they can’t compete in that environment but that’s because often it’s only the financial bottom line that is looked at. The corporatisation of the economy only seems to look at the short-term financial bottom line.
One US example that highlighted this was the doco on Walmart and their move into a town meant the local run family business couldn’t compete. He paid his workers a good livable wage, Walmart paid minimum wage (and had other advantages such as tax beaks and council support as well).
It was pretty clear which workers were better off.
The friend of small business the right wing is not – the friend of the corporates and the bankers it is indeed.
Having another look at the graph one of the more striking features is that youth unemployment seems to be habitually high – 15% in 2007 (even while the revered youth rates were operating), then jumping to around 25% today.
Given how high it is, that raises the question of why that high possibility of unemployment isn’t an incentive for the young to return (or stay) at school or other training/education?
Right wingers often say it’s because of the ‘easy’ life on the dole.
But, there’s another explanation. By 15 or 16 years plenty of young people could have had an absolute gutsful of education as it’s currently institutionalised.
Of course, there are also plenty of 15-19 year olds who have ‘begun to live’ – have worked, had children, been in the army, etc. so going back to school would seem pretty retrograde in terms of life’s momentum.
Hell burt how many times do we have to tell you take your medication. And the delusion that you are actually saying something of importance, will slowly fade.
Or it could be that youth employment is notoriously short-term given the propensity of employment in seasonal work such as tourism, working in cafes, the relative willingness to move from town to town and the lower likelihood of getting work in rural areas in particular, the movement in and out of study as courses commence and finish and so on.
Add to this an increasing Maori and Polynesian youth population where large numbers of Maori also live rurally and the racism inherent in many employers about employing these young people.
Years ago much youth unemployment was hidden as government departments had to take on so many school leavers each year – whether they needed them or not. Not a policy I disagree with either – it at least gave these kids a good transition from school to work when private enterprise had insufficient jobs for them.
It’s funny when right wingers talk about work for the dole if you suggest that can be done by allowing government departments to take on more school leavers – it seems what they really mean is work for a pittance.
Most teens work in the fast food industry, and as a former manager of said fast food outlets. I can tell you they work bloody hard for the pittance they get.
One place I know hasn’t employed less staff – but it has churned through a few more quickly than it usually does.
It also hasn’t employed any extras – there’s not an increase in employment just a greater churn.
Bottom line is employers employer people when their is work to do and most people lost their jobs because there was no work.
If you ain’t got a building contract, if you have lost your export orders, if there is no stock to kill, if no one is spending money in your shop, if no-one is buying any houses…. there are no jobs.
Screwing the workers isn’t going to create anything.
Right, so the 90 day period makes no difference to the number of people unemployed. Of course the recession started late 2007 (early 2008 if you can’t face reality) would increase unemployment, as the graph shows.
Yeah I’d pretty much agree with that. It doesn’t make any difference – it simply means that employers can churn through more employees – eg youth rates come in then what you would see is that 17 year olds would lose their jobs as they turn 18 – I recall a supermarket in Wanganui and another one in Hawkes Bay who were both very good at finding reasons to dismiss people when they turned 18 – a 90 day law just makes that so much easier.
The 90 day law simply allows the poor employers to undercut the good employers in these types of low skilled areas.
It also gives worker less job security and makes them more fearful and makes it harder for them to plan their lives, take out mortgages, etc.
All in all it is simply a way of suppressing workers.
The focus should be on creating employment rather than sideshows like this from the government that are only designed to keep wages down. But of course that’s what they want – it’s all about profit and return to shareholders.
That’s what seems most clueless about this government – they seem to have absolutely no idea about how to create jobs for people.
I feel the above to be correct, in my experience in the hospitality industry.
There is always a line of immigrants willing to work for less than the average kiwi youth, and now with the Fire at Will law, an employer can ‘pick and flick’ workers before they accrue holidays or are able to use sick leave if you write the contract right(wing).
“Business owners are out to be successful – deliberately undermining your business just so you can rip off your staff is not something that most business owners would bother even thinking about”
Ever worked in a bar? Or a duopoly, oops I mean a Supermarket?
Also, I offer my explanation for the saw-tooth pattern for the first four quarters earlier in the graph. Opening and closing of the Immigration Tap.
“I feel the above to be correct, in my experience in the hospitality industry.”</i?
Well I feel the above to be incorrect, based on my experience in the hospitality industry.
There is always a line of immigrants willing to work for less than the average kiwi youth, and now with the Fire at Will law, an employer can ‘pick and flick’ workers before they accrue holidays or are able to use sick leave if you write the contract right(wing).”
1. It takes around two months to get most new low skill hospitality employees up to and acceptable level of performance. It simply isn’t worth putting the time and effort into people and then firing them – unless they are still rubbish at their job after all that training. At that point the employer loses out because they need to start training someone new. It simply isn’t worth churning good staff. That is self evident to anyone who gives it half a moments thought.
2. By in large, kiwi’s are better at hospitality than your low wage immigrant
3. Firing someone before three months still means you pay out holiday pay. Your assertion is completely false. Sick pay – correct. But sick pay doesn’t kick in until 12 months anyway. I doubt many employers begrude paying sick pay to employees after 12 months – i.e I doubt many employers would prefer a staff full of new employees over a staff full of experienced staff.
Ever worked in a bar? Or a duopoly, oops I mean a Supermarket?”
1. It takes around two months to get most new low skill hospitality employees up to and acceptable level of performance. It simply isn’t worth putting the time and effort into people and then firing them
Meh, 2 or 3 months is often enough for an employer to get through a seasonal peak and then dump the worker.
And if it takes you 2 months to train someone to be a dishy or glassy I suggest you revamp your training programme.
2. By in large, kiwi’s are better at hospitality than your low wage immigrant
Low wage kiwis are better at hospitality than low wage immigrants? Hmmm maybe.
In my experience Australians are generally better. But I suppose they get paid enough to actually take their jobs seriously over there.
Meh, 2 or 3 months is often enough for an employer to get through a seasonal peak and then dump the worker.
The provision for this already existed prior to the 90 day trial. You could already hire employees on a fixed term basis or a casual (no guaranteed hours) basis. The 90 day rule has not changed this.
And if it takes you 2 months to train someone to be a dishy or glassy I suggest you revamp your training programme.
If you think a glassy or dishy who has been working for 2 months is as efficient as one who has been working 12 months, then your theory bears no resemblance to reality.
In my experience Australians are generally better. But I suppose they get paid enough to actually take their jobs seriously over there.
A good NZ bartender will earn pretty much the same rate as an NZ bartender. The difference is the tipping culture which allows the Aussie bartender to take home nearly 50% more. Did you notice the embedded tipping culture last time you were there? or did you not tip?
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TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
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This really is quite transparently stupid.
You’ve marked two important points related to employment law, but left off all other external influences that affect youth employment, such as the global financial crisis and resulting recession (depression?).
This graph, such as it is, really doesn’t convey any meaningful information.
that’s the point, one would think.
The right is claiming that abolishing youth rates increased youth unemployment on the spurious logic that youth unemployment has risen since then.
Equally, the right claims that fire at will is helping young people into work.
the graph shows that using the right’s logic, fire at will has increased youth unemployment. Thereby, elegantly showing what a crock of shit the right’s logic is.
Since when has an economic policy that has been introduced into an economy had overnight results? The poster seems to think the graph would have climbed immediately if the claims of Key and the “Right” were true.
On the same basis, it would be equivalent to a rise in the minimum wage immediately introducing inflation. Or changes to the tax system immediately resulting in massively lower/higher tax takes.
From his graph it appears the youth unemployment was 6 months after the policy took effect, which seems pretty reasonable…..
Seems to be a direct conflict with Mr Key’s words. (During question time yesterday?)
Lanthanide thinks is stupid, what’s stupid is we have a whole global class of people who brag how much their companies are destroying resources, using oil, and how much faster they can do it if they get a tax cut, and when they do lie, we send them to jail for fraud. Imagine that, someone lies that they just order the destruction of rain forests and they didn’t losing millions of investors their blood money. We don’t need not frigging pollution control, no tax rises!
Madoff is a hero!
Debt is ravaging the culture, the society, the children, all to keep debotrs from having to pay up.
Oh but if we hadn’t introduced Fire at Will, youth unemployment would be THREE TIMES worse than it is now!
You Lefties WANT to keep people poor and unemployed, that must be it!
Either that or the Righties want a flooded, over supplied, fearful, compliant pool of labour.
Wonder which.
But don’t you realise Zetetic? Without youth rates and fire at will, it would have been so much worse for young New Zealanders. Just like in the 90s, wages would have been so much lower than they were if it weren’t for the fact that collective bargaining was completely undermined.
These right wing policies soften all those ‘blows’ the world throws at us. Of course we still feel the blows … but you just have to believe, Zetetic, you and I are always being saved from an even worse fate by these compassionately rational policies.
[I don’t generally like sarcasm, but at the moment it just seems right.]
It should say “Youth rates abolished” – not “introduced”.
Lanth, I think Z’s intent is to refute the argument that the abolition of youth rates caused the spike in youth unemployment, rather than to imply that there is any causative relationship between the fire at will law and youth unemployment.
Sure, that is shown by the graph. But I still think it is misleading.
Also, Zet’s comment after the graph is “Fire at will was meant to help young people into work, wasn’t it?”, if he was trying to draw attention to abolition of youth rates not increasing unemployment, then some mention of that in the comment would have made it much clearer.
How about that. Another peak oil related phenomeon that doesn’t get related to peak oil.
I see OPEC don’t feel incline to pump more oil to save the world economy, and that oil prices have risen. How odd.
Luckily the economies of Europe and the US are collapsing faster than ours, otherwise we might have to do something.
so, what your saying is that zets graph is garbage and a weak attempt to deflect attention away from the fact that youth employment rose after the abolishment of youth rates? cool thought so.
someone has to read between the rails your thinking is on
but it rose even more and more sharply after fire at will was introduced.
by your logic, fire at will has caused youth unemployment to rise.
of which the timing coincided with the lagging effect of employment figure reporting as result of the GFC maybe? no, that can’t be right, doesn’t fit with the labour party manifesto and current play book issued with each new post on the standard. Blighty, when you really understand economics, come back and argue with me.
to save you having to use your brain, if price for a good goes up, demand for that good goes down, unless there are no readily substitutable goods. ie margarine for butter. so in this case, with ceterus parabis applying as even though i know you will be sitting down, drooling over the large button keyboard, i still don’t want to floor you, Adults for youths. as basic as it gets, but first principles are first for a reason
If in red it’s suposed to be Your Rates Abolished the graph isn’t a good look, because from that time on the graph gradually climbs after a short lag – it would likely not be an instant effect.
A significant climb starts well before the employment trial period was introduced – and it’s increase after that could as easily be linked to the financial crash which is a more likely cause.
The whole graph looks amazingly like it charts the beginning of the financial wobbles in early 2008 followed by the collywobbles.
Why don’t you just show a chart of numbers of people whose employment has been terminated within 90 days of employment, that’s actually relevant to the point you’re trying to make.
“Why don’t you just show a chart of numbers of people whose employment has been terminated within 90 days of employment, that’s actually relevant to the point you’re trying to make.”
Because the National government, in their infinitesimal wisdom, decided that no such official statistics needed to be recorded. Presumably because that might show that the law was being exploited or not actually working properly, so it’s safer to simply say it is working as you expected and not risk any statistics saying otherwise.
I thought the unions were going to keep us informed of the predicted avalanche of <90 terminations. I haven't seen them making much of it.
Sounds like you’re missing the point – there shouldn’t be a rise at all, with all the spin that was put on this as making it easier to employ out of work bene’s inclusive of youth this graph should be spiralling down, not upward.
The main point is that the financial conditions will have had much more influence than the 90 day trial.
If you think the chart movement is all due to the 90 day trial can you explain the sawtooth variations in 2007?
I love these charts of the day. How they can take a small sub-set of data, and then graph it in the most ideal timeframe, and then have people draw a conclusion.
In this case, we have the “Youth rates introduced”, which is stupid; it’s when they were abolished.
So it became harder to employ young people. That’s a fact.
Then we have the “fire at will”, which is nothing of the sort. But hey, suddenly the graph suggests that once the law was enacted, employers everywhere FIRED young employees.
Of course the law never gave them that power, only the power to dismiss NEW employees. The laws affect on employment rates should be positive, the biggest point of contestion were employee’s rights.
And finally, we have a graph titled fire-at-will, comparing the sub-section of youth unemployment vs a policy aimed at overall employment. But we don’t get that graph, just the youth subsection graph
So yes, a brilliant graph.
I agree with Lanthanide etc above who see the obvious problems with the graph above.
The main problem is that factors such as global recessions far outshine the effect of 90 day employment laws etc. To tease out the impact the lessor variable has on unemployment, the much stronger effect first has to be removed through appropriate statistical methods(e.g. multiple regression). Quite often, when this is done, a completely different picture will emerge for the weaker variable.
‘To tease out the impact the lessor variable has on unemployment, the much stronger effect first has to be removed through appropriate statistical methods(e.g. multiple regression). Quite often, when this is done, a completely different picture will emerge for the weaker variable.’
Absolutely correct.
Then we have to go back one step further and determine what brought about the global financial crisis of 2008 (which is a euphemism for the start of the never-ending depression, of course).
It couldn’t possibly have been the peaking of oil extraction (which ocurred over 2005 to 2006) in combination with rapidly increasing demand for oil from China and India, could it? No, that far too connected with reality and far too scary. Let’s look for some esoteric explanation that can be fixed with minor tweaking of policy settings.
It will be interesting to see how much longer the bulk of the populace refuses to accept some fundamental truths, such as that without cheap oil the global economic system founders, and that when oil extraction goes into significant decline the global economic system will implode.
They can vote green, that will keep the blinkers on for a little longer )
Agree with PeteG.
If anything, the graph points to the abolishment of youth rates as the driver for high youth unemployment. Sure, youth unemployment has risen since the 90 day probation bill was introduced, however the graph clearly shows that the upward trend started in Q3 2008 – Well before the 90 day bill was introduced. aside from the small kink at the time the probation bill was introduced, its a pretty solid upward trend until Q4 2009.
As far as I can see, the graph makes a pretty strong case for youth rates.
The graph doesn’t point anywhere you moron. That’s the whole point of the graph. There just isn’t enough information available to show anything but you’re here saying that it shows that the abolishment of youth rates caused the rise in youth unemployment.
As far as I can see, the graph makes a pretty strong case for youth rates.
So in other words you do not believe in a fair days wage for a fair days work ??
If you do believe that a fair days work, is worth a fair days pay. And those on the minimum wage are probably going to lose somewhere between 3 and 5 bucks an hour, out of a wage of 13 bucks per hour thats a cut of between 25% and 30%. Then under the fair days work, for a fair days wage. You then will also agree to take a paycut of between 25% and 30% without squealing?? No?? Oh but WE CAN HIRE A TEEN for less than we pay you. Oh and why not do you not realise that to drop the minimum youth rate to say 10 bucks an hour, means that ANY other rate above is probably due for the same cut, except of course the big bosses. They will get productivity bonuses for keeping the labour bill down, and even bigger bonuses for cutting said bill even further.
There is an old saying . Be careful what you wish for. You may just get it.
1. It also means that adults will more than likely always be chosen over teens for positions where there is a choice between the too.
2. “means that ANY other rate above is probably due for the same cut” – thats wrong. It is safe to assume that those adults on higher than the minimum wage are on that rate because they have experience in the role. Cutting the pay of your experienced staff is only going to end up harming your business in the long term, as said staff use their experience to get employment elsewhere.
Business owners are out to be successful – deliberately undermining your business just so you can rip off your staff is not something that most business owners would bother even thinking about.
But what usually happens is that the good, well run business who does employ people on a fair wage gets undercut by people who go for the lowest cost option.
Having a minimum wage at a reasonable rate levels the play field somewhat between good and bad employers. It means that the business needs to be run on a service basis more than a cost basis.
I’ve watched many a good business go because some jerk comes in and undercuts the market by only employing people on low wages.
I know there is a right wing argument that they are not a good business if they can’t compete in that environment but that’s because often it’s only the financial bottom line that is looked at. The corporatisation of the economy only seems to look at the short-term financial bottom line.
One US example that highlighted this was the doco on Walmart and their move into a town meant the local run family business couldn’t compete. He paid his workers a good livable wage, Walmart paid minimum wage (and had other advantages such as tax beaks and council support as well).
It was pretty clear which workers were better off.
The friend of small business the right wing is not – the friend of the corporates and the bankers it is indeed.
Having another look at the graph one of the more striking features is that youth unemployment seems to be habitually high – 15% in 2007 (even while the revered youth rates were operating), then jumping to around 25% today.
Given how high it is, that raises the question of why that high possibility of unemployment isn’t an incentive for the young to return (or stay) at school or other training/education?
Right wingers often say it’s because of the ‘easy’ life on the dole.
But, there’s another explanation. By 15 or 16 years plenty of young people could have had an absolute gutsful of education as it’s currently institutionalised.
Of course, there are also plenty of 15-19 year olds who have ‘begun to live’ – have worked, had children, been in the army, etc. so going back to school would seem pretty retrograde in terms of life’s momentum.
Oh look another graph of the day that shows the impact of Labour’s economic mismanagement.
Hell burt how many times do we have to tell you take your medication. And the delusion that you are actually saying something of importance, will slowly fade.
Or it could be that youth employment is notoriously short-term given the propensity of employment in seasonal work such as tourism, working in cafes, the relative willingness to move from town to town and the lower likelihood of getting work in rural areas in particular, the movement in and out of study as courses commence and finish and so on.
Add to this an increasing Maori and Polynesian youth population where large numbers of Maori also live rurally and the racism inherent in many employers about employing these young people.
Years ago much youth unemployment was hidden as government departments had to take on so many school leavers each year – whether they needed them or not. Not a policy I disagree with either – it at least gave these kids a good transition from school to work when private enterprise had insufficient jobs for them.
It’s funny when right wingers talk about work for the dole if you suggest that can be done by allowing government departments to take on more school leavers – it seems what they really mean is work for a pittance.
Most teens work in the fast food industry, and as a former manager of said fast food outlets. I can tell you they work bloody hard for the pittance they get.
Question: How has the 90 day trial period lowered the number of staff a fast food outlet employes ?
One place I know hasn’t employed less staff – but it has churned through a few more quickly than it usually does.
It also hasn’t employed any extras – there’s not an increase in employment just a greater churn.
Bottom line is employers employer people when their is work to do and most people lost their jobs because there was no work.
If you ain’t got a building contract, if you have lost your export orders, if there is no stock to kill, if no one is spending money in your shop, if no-one is buying any houses…. there are no jobs.
Screwing the workers isn’t going to create anything.
Right, so the 90 day period makes no difference to the number of people unemployed. Of course the recession started late 2007 (early 2008 if you can’t face reality) would increase unemployment, as the graph shows.
Yeah I’d pretty much agree with that. It doesn’t make any difference – it simply means that employers can churn through more employees – eg youth rates come in then what you would see is that 17 year olds would lose their jobs as they turn 18 – I recall a supermarket in Wanganui and another one in Hawkes Bay who were both very good at finding reasons to dismiss people when they turned 18 – a 90 day law just makes that so much easier.
The 90 day law simply allows the poor employers to undercut the good employers in these types of low skilled areas.
It also gives worker less job security and makes them more fearful and makes it harder for them to plan their lives, take out mortgages, etc.
All in all it is simply a way of suppressing workers.
The focus should be on creating employment rather than sideshows like this from the government that are only designed to keep wages down. But of course that’s what they want – it’s all about profit and return to shareholders.
That’s what seems most clueless about this government – they seem to have absolutely no idea about how to create jobs for people.
I feel the above to be correct, in my experience in the hospitality industry.
There is always a line of immigrants willing to work for less than the average kiwi youth, and now with the Fire at Will law, an employer can ‘pick and flick’ workers before they accrue holidays or are able to use sick leave if you write the contract right(wing).
“Business owners are out to be successful – deliberately undermining your business just so you can rip off your staff is not something that most business owners would bother even thinking about”
Ever worked in a bar? Or a duopoly, oops I mean a Supermarket?
Also, I offer my explanation for the saw-tooth pattern for the first four quarters earlier in the graph. Opening and closing of the Immigration Tap.
RedJez,
“I feel the above to be correct, in my experience in the hospitality industry.”</i?
Well I feel the above to be incorrect, based on my experience in the hospitality industry.
There is always a line of immigrants willing to work for less than the average kiwi youth, and now with the Fire at Will law, an employer can ‘pick and flick’ workers before they accrue holidays or are able to use sick leave if you write the contract right(wing).”
1. It takes around two months to get most new low skill hospitality employees up to and acceptable level of performance. It simply isn’t worth putting the time and effort into people and then firing them – unless they are still rubbish at their job after all that training. At that point the employer loses out because they need to start training someone new. It simply isn’t worth churning good staff. That is self evident to anyone who gives it half a moments thought.
2. By in large, kiwi’s are better at hospitality than your low wage immigrant
3. Firing someone before three months still means you pay out holiday pay. Your assertion is completely false. Sick pay – correct. But sick pay doesn’t kick in until 12 months anyway. I doubt many employers begrude paying sick pay to employees after 12 months – i.e I doubt many employers would prefer a staff full of new employees over a staff full of experienced staff.
Ever worked in a bar? Or a duopoly, oops I mean a Supermarket?”
Yes. And Yes.
Meh, 2 or 3 months is often enough for an employer to get through a seasonal peak and then dump the worker.
And if it takes you 2 months to train someone to be a dishy or glassy I suggest you revamp your training programme.
Low wage kiwis are better at hospitality than low wage immigrants? Hmmm maybe.
In my experience Australians are generally better. But I suppose they get paid enough to actually take their jobs seriously over there.
Meh, 2 or 3 months is often enough for an employer to get through a seasonal peak and then dump the worker.
The provision for this already existed prior to the 90 day trial. You could already hire employees on a fixed term basis or a casual (no guaranteed hours) basis. The 90 day rule has not changed this.
And if it takes you 2 months to train someone to be a dishy or glassy I suggest you revamp your training programme.
If you think a glassy or dishy who has been working for 2 months is as efficient as one who has been working 12 months, then your theory bears no resemblance to reality.
In my experience Australians are generally better. But I suppose they get paid enough to actually take their jobs seriously over there.
A good NZ bartender will earn pretty much the same rate as an NZ bartender. The difference is the tipping culture which allows the Aussie bartender to take home nearly 50% more. Did you notice the embedded tipping culture last time you were there? or did you not tip?