Nats lose 30,000 jobs in a year

Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, February 7th, 2013 - 25 comments
Categories: jobs - Tags:

When was the last time you heard John Key promise 170,000 new jobs? Just before the election in 2011, I reckon. Well, this last year 30,000 jobs were lost. Put that in context, it’s the 3rd largest annual job loss in history. The largest was 1988 as Douglas put the economy to the sword. The next was 2009 during the recession. And now, we’re losing 600 jobs a week during the ‘recovery’.

The Nats can’t blame the rest of the world for this. Employment in the OECD grew by over 3 million in the last year. This is John Key’s failure.

25 comments on “Nats lose 30,000 jobs in a year ”

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  1. mac1 1
    7 February 2013 at 1:08 pm

    I watched a programme on the history channel last night on Wales where the situation was so bad in the mid thirties that the King visited and pronounced how alarmed he was at the situation. (Nothing much was done though.)

    The situation was so bad that a quarter of a million Welsh moved across the border and overseas in seven years.

    How many jobs have we lost? How many people have we lost overseas for jobs?

    And King Keynute does nothing.

    • Scott 1.1
      7 February 2013 at 3:46 pm

      Plus what is the actual number of those who have opted out of the workforce (don’t forget they are still contributing to the economy)? From December 2012 quarter of HLFS of Stats NZ:-

      “… the labour force participation rate fell 1.2 percentage points to 67.2 percent. The number of people outside the labour force increased”

      Although I don’t know the details of the methodology, I suspect this is a conservative figure.

      Doing nothing is the default modus operandi I would suggest. It illustrates the utter lack of imagination and sensitivity (amongst other things of course) that characterises this government. It hardly seems to be even Managerialism to me. Rather more like mere Administration.

      Then again maybe I’m being hoodwinked: perhaps this government’s decisions, or lack of them, are all plays from a new edition of the RR (Ruth and Roger) game book: implement the deeply flawed yet trumpeted policies of recent governments (those since 1984), but this time with true stealth.

      I am tired of being Merrill Lynched by this accountant.

    • mac1 1.2
      8 February 2013 at 9:31 am

      I can answer my own, last question. The upshot is that a disastrous Welsh experience where 250,000 out of a population of 2,500,000 emigrated over seven years is being replicated in New Zealand at the moment. 10% of the population over seven years.

      Our emigration figures according to the NZ Herald in August 2012 were 83,700 leaving for overseas. To balance that 83,700 people came into the country to live of whom one quarter were NZers returning home. That is , 60,000 NZers have left for good in the year. Over seven years, that would be 420,000 or 10% of our population.

      The same as Wales in the later thirties-early forties. The Welsh population stayed relatively static for forty years. Is this to be our fate? Our best, brightest and most motivated leave for foreign parts leaving a lowly paid population to act as a servant and support class for the resident and visiting uber-rich?

      The latest answer? Oil, gas, foreign investment.

  2. geoff 2
    7 February 2013 at 1:58 pm

    Unemployment is down from 7.3% to 6.9% though! Great news!
    Oops, hold the phone, it’s only because people gave up looking for work and ‘dropped out’ of the labour force… oh well.
    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/127470/unemployment-rate-falls-as-more-give-up-job-hunt

  3. Tom Gould 3
    7 February 2013 at 2:00 pm

    Don’t expect to see any of this in the MSM. The tory glee club will trumpet the “fall in unemployment” as further proof of the “recovey” and that we are “heading in the right direction” and that the “switch from cut backs to spending” is working. I can just see Corin and Paddy now.

  4. Pete 4
    7 February 2013 at 2:45 pm

    Don’t forget, that quarter covered the Christmas shopping period, where a lot of stores took on extra staff, but only temporarily.

    • Lanthanide 4.1
      7 February 2013 at 9:23 pm

      Pretty sure the headline 6.9% unemployment is seasonally adjusted, so should take into account the normal Christmas temp jobs.

      I never could really get my head around seasonal adjustments in stats. It makes sense why you would want to do it, I just never understood how the seasonal component was truly calculated.

      • James Henderson 4.1.1
        7 February 2013 at 10:01 pm

        “I just never understood how the seasonal component was truly calculated.”

        – with lots of maths. They take all the previous data in the series and try to calculate the typical variation from the March quarter for the other quarters, then correct for that variation so that all the quarters show, more or less, as if they were March quarter.

        I think that they try to remove cyclical effects from their seasonal variation calculations. Maybe they don’t, and maybe that’s why there’s been trouble with seasonal adjustments in recent years throwing up weird jumps and falls in unemployment when the actual levels were changing much more consistently.

        Also, because they constantly revise the seasonal adjustment formula with each quarter’s new data, past quarters results often change quiet significantly.

  5. tracey 5
    7 February 2013 at 5:31 pm

    … and it will drop again when those students who bothered getting jobs return to study.

    Am around the current generation of uni students. Those from comfortable backgrounds were more likely to “quit the job for the holidays” – yes you read correctly, or not bother and just take the study grant (even though they will have to pay it back), than those I know from less well off backgrounds.

    I am stunned by the number of parents who vote Nat or ACT and who rail against the bludgers on benefits who stand by while their children bludge off the benefits (study and other grants).

    I have in my household one such teenager who had work available but turned it down, when he did work it was only for 4 hours a day and only until he sorted out his student allowances. He is not our child so he technically has no parents supporting him. He is lazy and will continue to be lazy as he receives welfare money.

    SO, we have talked to him and to WINZ and he may be surprised when he doesn’t get the hardship grant he is expecting. He will get the student allowance (not payable back) BUT we are now charging him the exact amount of the allowance to cover all his living expenses.

    If this doesn’t work we will be asking him to leave and go flatting.

    Sadly one parent I know who is very vocal about consequences and working for money, and not bludging is actually encouraging one of his children to take the student loan, use it for a house deposit and collect rent to pay the mortgage etc…

  6. Jenny 6
    7 February 2013 at 5:40 pm

    …….this last year 30,000 jobs were lost. Put that in context, it’s the 3rd largest annual job loss in history. The largest was 1988 as Douglas put the economy to the sword. The next was 2009 during the recession.

    JAMES HENDERSON

    For this alone the Labour Party should be flaying the Nats. In parliament, in the media, in every single public forum.

    Why aren’t they?

    • Draco T Bastard 6.1
      7 February 2013 at 5:51 pm

      Well, considering their bene bashing, the fact that they didn’t raise benefits to their original levels and that they supportive of capitalism – I’d say that their just as enthusiastic as John Key to lower wages.

    • Jenny 6.2
      7 February 2013 at 5:55 pm

      I suppose the reason could be, James’ second sentence, “The largest was 1988 as Douglas put the economy to the sword.

      Maybe this is a signal that the Labour Party should openly break with the past and oust those who owe their positions in the Labour caucus to time served in the neo-liberal regime of Douglas and co.

  7. ad 7
    7 February 2013 at 5:41 pm

    Even if National manages to stabilise unemployment with emigration and Christchurch, the total lack of hope in New Zealand shown by people simply dropping out and not even seeking work anymore is pretty damning.

    Christchruch itself – dark though its causes are – is just one enormous sugar-rush of the kind we saw in Auckland leading up to 2007. Construction has little innovation, is highly unstable as an economic cycle, generally goes from one job to the next, is almost totally de-nuionised and contracted out, pays crap per hour for the grunt put into it, and is notoriously internationally mobile and hence able to be undercut. In short one of the least economically useful industries we have.

    So even if Auckland’s housing construction market were to seriously get going, it is of little help to New Zealand beyond its next binge-purge cycle. Our economic addiction is now made worse by being effetively commecially governed by a dupoply.

    This government touts itself as a great dealmaker, with deals that can really shift an economy upwards;
    – National Convention Centre
    – The Hobbit
    – Rugby World Cup
    – National Cycleway
    – Roads of National Significance
    Of those that have achieved anything, none have been sustainable (with the arguable exception of The Hobbit) have brought sustainable careers earning good salaries back to New Zealand. The Hobbit has certainly sustained innovation within Wellington, but is deeply de-unionised and highly boom-bust vulnerable like construction.

    Labour responds by proposing the (laudable) goal of manufacturing housing like crazy. Totally agree with the policy goal objective. But it’s no way to strengthen an economy – it’s part fo the same stupid sugar-rush.

    We are not going to get out of this weak cycle of rescuing ourselves with construction-based sugar-fixes until the private sector and government (current or next) work together on building companies that hire with real saries, manufacturing high innovation and high value products.

    I do not believe that the entire world is about to go backwards because of Peak Oil or anything else. I believe the basic task of government is to work to make us safer and wealthier, and shoring up the construction industry simply infantilises our economy.

    The Callaghan Institute was a good initiative in this space. But one instance, 6 years into gvoernment. Weak. Needed one every six months.

    • bad12 7.1
      7 February 2013 at 7:03 pm

      House-holds are at the heart of economy, more house-holds equates to more spending in the economy,

      The more affordable the price of the roof over anyone’s head is be that rent or mortgage the more income is free to be spent into the economy…

  8. bad12 8
    7 February 2013 at 7:14 pm

    Cheers Irish, welcome to the standard…

    [original parent comment / spam deleted – r0b]

  9. The Al1en 9
    7 February 2013 at 8:59 pm

    “Nats lose 30,000 jobs in a year”

    Have they looked under Paula’s lolly and cream cake stockpile?

  10. swan 10
    7 February 2013 at 10:01 pm

    “Nats lose 30,000 jobs in a year”

    Fortunately National hasnt nationalised the economy, and as such are not responsible for every job in said economy. Having said that the HLFS data has started to become increasingly unreliable and as such should be ignored unfortunately.

  11. Afewknowthetruth 11
    7 February 2013 at 11:00 pm

    How much longer are we going to hear drivel about ‘recession’.

    What we are experiencing is no recession: it is the reversal of the Industrial Revolution, otherwise known as Death by a Thousand Cuts. Expect a lot more economic contraction over the next few years as the energy supply shrinks globally.

  12. BCat 12
    8 February 2013 at 12:23 pm

    . I remember Winston Peters on the talk back on the radio. In the 1990s warning people about privatisation and asset sales. remember there has never been a Maori prime minister in NZ.
    Now we are in 2013. and look what is happening. Maybe we need a change of Government. We just celebrated the signing of The Treaty of Waitangi, and as long as the royal family keep visiting our country. We are safe under sovereignty, it stops our country becoming a communist country run by dictators. and the Treaty Remains. despite all the negative being thrown around.
    As for the NZ’ders exiting from NZ’ersAustralia. The aussies will get sick of NZ’ders taking their Jobs soon, and by the time they return to NZ there won’t be any Jobs to come back to.Learn from the movie The Gangss of New York. The twin towers went down in that same area. that blood was spoilt when the immigrants and Americans were fighting over Jobs being taken over. Why do theses people come over to our Country to escape persecution in their own and start a better life but only to come to our country to survive and keep their families. They got very little money in their own country, so they are not fuzzy about how much they earn, why because they get more money here, even though it is less for kiwis complaining we need to be thankful for what we have and get paid. It is all worth it in the end.

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