The lazy unemployed

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 23rd, 2011 - 22 comments
Categories: class war, employment, jobs, john key, national - Tags:

The Nats think the unemployed are lazy. John Key reckons they need “a kick in the pants” to get them back to work. Paula Bennett reckons their harsh reforms mean that “the dream is over” for beneficiaries.

For some, such as sickness beneficiaries, or parents with young children, part time work is all that is expected. So no excuses for those lazy unemployed! Getting a part time job should be easy! Just get up off the sofa and…

Desperate seek part-time jobs

Job-hunters desperate to find part-time work are applying in their hundreds for vacancies that pay little more than the minimum wage.

The number of Kiwis looking for part-time jobs has skyrocketed as students, mothers returning to the workforce and those struggling to find a full-time job compete for work.

Recruitment experts say tough financial conditions have forced many to consider part-time work to get by. Others are seeking a greater work:life balance. Statistics New Zealand reported that the number of jobless looking for part-time work increased from 50,900 to 57,000 in the year to March.

An accounting role advertised with Alpha Recruitment drew 230 applications and a $14-an-hour bartending job at the Northern Steamship Macs Brewbar in central Auckland drew more than 250 applications this month. … At least 50 of those seeking the bar job delivered their CV in person to boost their chances. …

The number of people unemployed in March was 486,200, up from 474,300 a year earlier.

Madison Recruitment’s Julie Cressey said many job-hunters were parents needing to work around school hours to bring in more money. “There is financial pressure on people and for some people a second income is required,” she said. Alpha Recruitment manager Joanna Raply agreed. “I can see there’s more desperate people out there who can’t find jobs and they’re frustrated. It’s a tight market.” …

Dance student Emma Thumath was reduced to tears after a fruitless four-month search for part-time work. The University of Auckland student, in her 30s, has struggled to find a job to pay her living costs. Thumath started looking for bar work. She dropped her CV into about 30 places and applied for jobs online.

She finally managed to secure casual work at a bar, but still needed a regular part-time job to pay her bills. So far there has been little response from employers. “It’s just bar work, which has a high turnaround. I thought surely dropping off your CV into bars would work but you never hear back,” she said.

Making her search more difficult was the level of competition for jobs. Two hundred people applied for a recent position, leaving her little hope of selection.

Ahhh. So just two problems with the Nats’ crack-down on the lazy unemployed then. (1) The lazy unemployed are largely a myth of their own making, and (2) there are no jobs. Apart from those tiny details, another brilliant policy success from National!

22 comments on “The lazy unemployed ”

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  1. vto 1
    23 May 2011 at 9:42 am

    Key admitted to his own new all-encompassing job creation scheme this weekend in Christchurch when he referred to the growth in EQC employment as something to celebrate.

    Just like there were more coroners needed in the city too.

    For fucks sake, is this clown serious?

    The only person needing “a kick in the pants” is Key himself and his credibility. Lying prick.

    You know, often-times I personally mouth off big time at political fuckwits in positions of power. It may seem excessive and at times it probably is. But it is without doubt, on my part, meant to be personal to Key and English and anyone else (Clark and Cullen previously). They cannot hide behind the office of their position. Their decisions impact directly and heavily on our own personal lives, so I take it back to them in a personal manner.

    It is personal.

    edit: and before anyone says “oh but you hide in anonymity here!” that is true, on here, but I have and will continue to take these things to these people personally. Several exchanges are had in an average term, in a personal manner, name and address etc with the politicians and others in power.

  2. mickysavage 2
    23 May 2011 at 9:54 am

    For their prejudices to be right the Nats must believe that during their reign there has been an outbreak of bludgerism.  That namby pamby Clark Labour Government had the unemployment rate under 4% and it is now hovering around 7% of the working population.
     
    What have they done to raise the incidence of bludgerism so dramatically?

    • vto 2.1
      23 May 2011 at 10:07 am

      ha ha, brilliant question for an astute interviewer. Problem is there would be no answering of the question, instead just all the usual avoidance tactics.

      • Colonial Viper 2.1.1
        23 May 2011 at 11:08 am

        Answer is easy my dear job seekers, so easy that 700,000 Kiwi born New Zealanders have already found the answer.

        AUSTRALIA

  3. johnm 3
    23 May 2011 at 9:57 am

    Yes Paula Bennett is correct the “dream is over” ! That dream is the unique one-off era of prosperity afforded by the exploitation of oil, gas and coal which has enabled year in year out growth in national and the World economies. That era is now closing: 40,000,000 plus and increasing on food stamps in the U$. massive unemployment in Spain specially amongst youth. Increasing unemployment in the UK. Mass unemployment in the Middle East. If it weren’t for the safety valve of our people going to Australia and the UK we would have very serious unemployment here. Unemployment in NZ will get worse I am sure of that So, do we treat our unemployed like the Nazis treated the jews-wear a beni ID tag and alienate them further or do we try and act like mature intelligent people and address what can we do about this growing problem in a World at the end of the Industrial era fiesta? Key’s a joke he made his money in a parasitical profession of currency manipulation – an example of the corruption inherent in the current Capitalist system. Yes the dream is over! I don’t think Paula Bennett is up to coping with it myself!

  4. pollywog 4
    23 May 2011 at 11:34 am

    Paula seriously needs to lay off the chocolate…

  5. NickS 5
    23 May 2011 at 11:44 am

    Hah.

    It’s even more difficult if your on the sickness benefit like me looking for some work. All I have that’s available is fulltime labouring stuff that burns me out on the day four mark and being honest and mentioning my depression puts me at an immediate disadvantage for competing for part time work.

    • Treetop 5.1
      23 May 2011 at 4:57 pm

      Exhausted adrenal glands respond well to vitamin C. Healtheries have a good 250 mg cheap buffered brand available at most supermarkets. I suffered terribly from depression 30 years ago and found vitamin C a big help.

  6. Craig Glen Eden 6
    23 May 2011 at 11:47 am

    The dream will be over but it will be Bennett’s dream that comes to an end. Bye Bye Bully Bennett.

    • Rex Widerstrom 6.1
      23 May 2011 at 4:53 pm

      Alas no, because it seems no matetr how incompetent one performs Ministerial duties, the mere fact that you once held the title is enough to get you a job with some company who wants you to lobby your mates for favours. Of course it’ll be some nondescript title for her, like “Non Executive Director”.

      If she’s so confident that there’s work out there for even the most dimwitted, incompetent and unpleasant job seeker then she ought to be pushing for laws similar to those enacted in other countries, which prohibit former elected officials from any rôle involved in lobbying for a considerable period after they leave office.

      Can you imagine Paula’s first day in a real job (assuming she could ever get one)? To quote Rowan Atkinson’s brilliant bit of stand-up, colleagues would be saying “either this [wo]man is suffering from serious brain damage or the new vacuum cleaner’s just arrived”.

  7. randal 7
    23 May 2011 at 12:05 pm

    is paula beenit crazy. there is no dream for beneficiaries. its a frigging nightmare.

  8. North 8
    23 May 2011 at 1:22 pm

    It’s all part of a wilful and advised agenda to demonise the victim poor in this society.

    Demonise the victims as lazy and burdensome so that the “middle”, those who elected Key last time can identify a category of people to sneer at and blame, a category against whom to distinguish themselves. The payoff……they’re left believing they’re God’s gift to this country. In reality they’re just shitty, weak little snobs needing someone to kick to distract from their innate sense of themselves as utterly insignificant and meaninglessness.

    Key is utterly unprincipled. Ultimately he stands for nothing other than the retention of his own scurrilously amassed wealth and power and the wealth and power of his ilk. Justice and a truly better New Zealand take a hike.

    Forget all that “Awwwh Shucks…….” smiley, smiley crap.

    As for Ugly Betty Benefit…… save me. She’s simply doing his cynical bidding, poor thick cow !

    • Treetop 8.1
      23 May 2011 at 4:42 pm

      As a side issue. Every year there is a post budget breakfast. For some reason this year I was drawn to what was being eaten. Some good shots were recorded of the contents on the plate; ham, cheese, eggs. And yes the plates were all full.

  9. Craig 9
    23 May 2011 at 3:23 pm

    Does anyone remember the opportunist rhetoric from the right’s little helpers about ‘civil society’ and charitable giving when they were in Opposition last? And full marks to those who realise that Paula Bennett is indeed in a marginal electorate come November.

    When is someone going to say it? Social citizenship is a barrier to the sort of runaway crime and depradations that are commonplace in the United States because it’s so backward when it comes to the sort of comprehensive welfare state and public health system that we take for granted in the mainstream western world. Enough of this alien rhetoric about ‘welfare dependency.’ Given that the New Right created this problem, it now presumes to preach to its victims? Such arrogant hypocrisy.

  10. Treetop 10
    23 May 2011 at 4:32 pm

    I am finding the number one problem that the government is having with unemployment is that they are not being realistic about unemployment. A person is no longer unemployed when they have a job. If there is no job to go to they will remain unemployed.

    WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

  11. Terry 11
    23 May 2011 at 4:56 pm

    When Bennett came into her job the dream was over alright, for the nightmare began! She and her Master are still dissatisfied with the punishment they have inflicted on their “underclasses”, they dearly wish to hand out lots more. The worst of this is that vast numbers of New Zealanders are encouraging them all the way, awaiting their own selfish rewards. Since the budget, however, the brutal Key seems tired, forgetting the usual sneer and leer.

  12. Deborah Kean 12
    23 May 2011 at 6:59 pm

    Last night, I was phoned by a polling organisation (unidentified!) She asked me to rate various proposals for bene bashing, as to whether I approved, disapproved or was neutral.
    Scary stuff! Unemployment beneficiaries (such as I am) will be doing PD (in effect) for 20 hours a week. The woman calling me actually agreed (but couldn’t say so, however, her tone said it for her) when I said I ‘disapproved strongly”. I suspect it was all about flying trial balloons…
    Vicky

  13. Tanz 13
    26 May 2011 at 8:28 pm

    His statement is a bit creepy. There are suddenly lots of jobs in the insurance industry too, that had at one time dried up, due to the quakes. All the same, there are still many more vacancies needed in many other areas.

    Key was brought up in a State house, but I don’t believe he really knows or understands the hardship of the unemployed and disadvantaged. Maybe I am wrong.

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