Key loses 30,000 jobs in a single year

• James Henderson
• 11 years ago
• Categories: jobs, john key

Key reacts to criticism of his appalling jobs record, which has 300,000 Kiwis jobless and 30,000 fewer people in work in the last year:

“Throw criticism if you see things that we are not doing, but in terms of trying to stimulate jobs we’ve done a lot of things on that front. We’ve done everything from 90 day probation periods, to starting out wages.”

That’s his solution? Cut wages and work rights? Gee, why not bring back workhouses too while you’re at it? The truth is four years of attacking work rights and driving down wages has failed to create jobs.

And it’s hard to believe that Key really cares. Not when a government department, an employer that he controls, is firing people today.

Here’s criticism of things that you’re not doing on the jobs front, Mr Key –

• get the exchange rate down so our manufacturers can export and our local businesses don’t get kneecapped by cheap imports;
• stop the housing bubble with CGT, LVR, and residency rules to free up capital for business;
• build affordable homes, sell them to families, and create jobs that way;
• invest in public transport that is, dollar for dollar, several times more jobs intensive than motorways and means we send less of our money overseas to pay for oil and get to keep it here to spend on investment;
• renew and enhance the home insulation scheme, which has created 2,000 jobs and is about to run out of money
• introduce insulation initiatives for public buildings like schools that saves money in the medium and long term and creates jobs in the short-term;
• tax pollution so you can reduce tax on companies and income;
• back domestic tourism to replace the plummeting international tourism take, which has cost 7,000 jobs in four years;
• create a national investment fund that Kiwis can invest in via their Kiwisaver and use that money to build Kiwi-owned companies that private enterprise can’t get the capital for;
• make WINZ into a replacement for the shark-like labour hire companies that currently pray on the un- and underemployed and, in doing so, promote insecure work arrangements;
• unashamedly favour Kiwi businesses when making government contracts like the new rail rolling stock, the ultrafast broadband cable, the Mighty River website, Novopay, and IRD’s new computer system which all could have been done by Kiwi companies;
• and stop firing people from government jobs

That’ll do for starters, eh?

As for Key’s claim that unemployment will be 6% by year’s end, well he hasn’t been that flash at living up for expectations thus far:

(source: Budgets)