Too many jobs being created

Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, November 7th, 2018 - 14 comments
Categories: business, capitalism, economy, Economy, employment, making shit up, unemployment - Tags: , ,

Olly Hartless

As predicted by the ANZ Bank’s dire business confidence surveys, today’s unemployment data revealed that unemployment has fallen to a disastrous level of 3.9 percent, its lowest rate since the global financial crisis a decade ago.
This bleak news follows the catastrophic GDP data showing the economy grew at 1.0 percent in the June quarter and the even more calamitous $5.5 billion government budget surplus for the year to June.
“This confirms all our worst fears that predicted the economy and the country are going down faster than Donald Trump,” said ANZ Bank economist Philip Dorkin. “We were totally confident that our Business Outlook Survey showing the lowest business confidence since the GFC would deliver the recession all we bankers wanted. Investor confidence was at rock bottom, so this is hardly the result we wanted.”
“It means banks like the one I work for, that are close to receivership with a derisory $2 billion profit, will have to close even more branches and jack up fees even more just to survive.”
The September quarter jobs data showed the latest quarter jobless rate fell from 4.4 percent in the June quarter due to a 13,000 (10.5 percent) drop in those surveyed as unemployed and a strong rise in employment, up 29,000.
The employment rate rose to 68.3 per cent, the highest rate on record since the series began more than 30 years ago. Some 8000 fewer women and 5000 fewer men were unemployed while youth (15–24-year-olds) unemployment fell by 11,000. There were 6000 fewer youth unemployed and not in education, which led to the not in employment, education or training (NEET) rate falling to 10.1 per cent.
“This is as close to an unmitigated disaster as it is possible to get,” said Business New Zealand chief executive Kirk Hopeless. “The ANZ Bank’s Business Outlook survey has unquestionably and consistently shown the economy was heading for recession, if not a repeat of the Great Recession.
“How can employers expect to push down wages when you have such low unemployment? Not only has the $11 billion fiscal hole that former National Party Finance Minister Stephen Joyce so truthfully forecast not eventuated, but you have the economy growing at a healthy annualised rate of 4.0 percent,” Hopeless said.
“If this continues, along with the current display of unity inside the National Party, you could see Labour in office for three terms, and imagine the havoc that would wreak.”
New Zealand Initiate Executive Director Oliver Hartless said there had to be questions about the data.
“You have a pathetic, divided Labour-led government that is delivering strong job growth, the economy is singing along as fast as it can possibly travel and the budget is running surpluses that are only going to get bigger due to the strong jobs growth.
“This can’t be allowed to happen,” Hartless said.

14 comments on “Too many jobs being created ”

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  1. mac1 1
    7 November 2018 at 2:40 pm

    Regarding the disappointment amongst the RW and business commentariat with their downcrying of the success of this government in their ‘business surveys” let us note the words that Bob Dylan once sang in “Love Minus Zero: No Limit”;

    “In the dime stores and bus stations people talk of situations
    Read books, repeat quotations draw conclusions on the wall
    Some speak of the future my love she speaks softly
    She knows there’s no success like failure and that failure’s no success at all.”

    The Govt spokesperson, Amy Adams, is claiming National’s policies as the source for the success of this government- lowest figures in a decade- in the House at question time. They know this government is succeeding, and their internal polling, as Peters cheekily adverted to in a question to the Finance Minister, is showing this.

    Puckish Rogue, is the reference to ‘my love’ in line three a prescient allusion to Judith
    Collins and her opinion of the success of the current Leader of the Opposition?

  2. Ad 2
    7 November 2018 at 2:48 pm

    Maybe the survey is right.

    3.8% unemployment, but no wage growth.

    11% underutilisation rate, but no productivity gains.

    Buoyant tax take, but who really is shopping?

    Massive govt spending, but public sector striking.

    Export growth consistent across sectors, but trade deficit going backward for a generation.

    “Right direction” polls strong, but we’re hollowed out, homeless, and most are still losing.

    Maybe they’re partly right.

  3. stuff the politicians 3
    7 November 2018 at 3:06 pm

    Only the Nats would say, Bugger.

    Just goes to show what a waste of nine long years were.

  4. woodart 4
    7 November 2018 at 3:48 pm

    absolutley disasterous news. ministers should resign. sky not falling……

  5. Stuart Munro 5
    7 November 2018 at 4:06 pm

    It took decades to screw things up, and it won’t be fixed in a year.

    Assuming the stats are right, and in recent memory they’ve not reflected employment particularly well, we’re still at a seasonal low point. It’s good to see movement in the right direction, but things like the mean employment interval are also critical in determining things like housing affordability. The gig economy has tended to move us in the wrong direction.

    It would be good to see some moves on cost of living also – the $US comparison fails to illustrate the low buying power of our currency in our own market. I can recall earning less than the NZ average wage in Korea, but still being able to eat out frequently, have a beer if I chose, and still save over half my salary.

  6. One Two 6
    7 November 2018 at 5:01 pm

    When unemployment moves closer to 100%, humanity might be heading in the direction of positive change…

    Until then citing such stats/figues which are finessed and manipulated at best, serves only to highlight that the status quo still has the headlock on, deeply..

    3.9% is disatrous!

  7. greywarshark 7
    7 November 2018 at 6:55 pm

    New Zealand Jobless Rate Edges Up in Q2
    New Zealand Labour Last Highest
    Employment Change 0.50 2.50
    Labor Force Participation Rate 70.90 71.10
    Labour Costs 1168.00 1168.00
    Productivity 168.99 171.61

    (Productivity is up Labour force participation up.)
    https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/unemployment-rate
    **************************************************************

    Statistics dept. –
    Our official statistics are not collecting information about people in general!
    ‘Nothing to see here, move along.’

    https://www.stats.govt.nz/tools/nz-social-indicators
    NZ social indicators
    Explore data on a range of key New Zealand social statistics.

    Note: the data in these indicators is no longer being updated.

    Use NZ social indicators tool
    Find graphs and data tables by domain:

    Health
    Perceived discrimination
    Education
    Labour market
    Standard of living
    Trust and participation in government
    Culture and identity
    Leisure and arts
    Individual safety and security
    Social connections

    What are social statistics?

    Social statistics tell a story about aspects of people’s lives and their well-being. They are produced from two kinds of data: administrative data and survey data.

    Administrative data records people’s contact with public bodies and institutions, such as a stay in hospital or the award of an educational qualification.

    Survey data is created when people complete questionnaires, either themselves or by speaking to an interviewer.
    What are the New Zealand social indicators?

    The New Zealand social indicators give you the most useful social statistics from across New Zealand government in one place, so it’s easier to find the information you’re looking for.

    NZ progress indicators
    The data in these indicators is no longer being updated. Get a picture of how well we are living, how resources are being distributed and used, and what we are leaving for future generations.

  8. Incognito 8
    7 November 2018 at 10:39 pm

    To all the groupies of the rock star economy: it was nice while it lasted.

  9. SaveNZ 9
    8 November 2018 at 8:43 am

    Judging by the amount of poverty something is seriously wrong with these figures and the fact it is now blatantly obvious that people are paying for fake jobs to get NZ residency, which is skewing the unemployment figures and screwing over Kiwis who can’t afford to ‘pay’ for jobs because we are actually used to being payed to work. Rogernomics meets Neoliberalism alive and well in NZ 2018! Weird all the other poverty figures are going up in NZ under such high unemployment! I wonder why? sarcasm.

    “It could be the most blatant cash-for-visas scam yet – a covertly taped meeting showing an Auckland couple handing over $5000 in cash in a bank bag and receiving the paperwork they need to apply for a work visa in return.

    The couple, who are afraid to be named, secretly recorded their meeting with restaurateurs Janesh Kharbanda and Bhawna Kapila Bhatia.

    They say they paid the money in return for a job and – more importantly – to secure Kharbanda and Bhatia’s support for their application for New Zealand residency.

    The video records them agreeing to pay a total of $20,000 and to paying part of the tax attached to the job, with Kharbanda, a prominent Indian businessman feted for his charity work and who has links to National and Labour Party figures, promising: “I will fix it.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/108356004/the-big-scam-5000-cash-buys-you-a-job

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/107073415/the-big-scam-bad-eggs

    The Big Scam: 17 granted residency through alleged ‘paper’ company
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/107454068/the-big-scam-17-granted-residency-through-alleged-paper-company

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/107212250/the-big-scam-the-kingpin

  10. SaveNZ 10
    8 November 2018 at 9:09 am

    Most countries are tying to stop fraudsters in their countries and fake jobs and workers but in NZ, apparently the government are more worried about what happens when the Ponzi stops than filling NZ with frauds and fake residents, who after getting residency obviously have much freer reign to create more scams and fakes here as they never genuinely had the skills to settle here.

    Guess what, fakes don’t exactly end well and tend to cost a whole heap of money and social costs especially since we have a welfare system here and low wage workers are topped up with accomodation, health, family, social welfare, WFF and so forth.

    So people on fake jobs are not going to be an issue for Kiwi’s for just a few years, but a lifetime of support taking taxes from people legitimately working in NZ whose taxes are now having to support the fakes as well as those that need support who got there legally.

    Government policy is sending NZ skilled people off shore to get decent work opportunities and wages while we import people with fake skills who can’t get work on those fake skills and then they wonder why statistics don’t add up here anymore!

  11. SaveNZ 11
    8 November 2018 at 10:21 am

    Also weird that 9000 more people have moved onto a jobseeker benefit and that in the September 2018 quarter there was a 7.4 percent increase in the number of people receiving Jobseeker Support.

    So we have somehow very low unemployment but more people are needing support, possibly among other things, apparently having 1 hour a week of employment is counted as employment or with the small NZ population massive increases in immigration can skew what is actually happening, in real terms.

    The quality of employment and whether people can live on wages would be a more important measure to investigate, as is productivity and the skill and educational levels of people living and working here. Is it going up or down?

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1811/S00080/jobseeker-numbers-a-puzzle-given-unemployment-numbers.htm

    https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/benefit/latest-quarterly-results/all-main-benefits.html

    • Craig H 11.1
      8 November 2018 at 3:47 pm

      I suspect the higher benefit rate is because the government demanded better service from MSD.