THE RISE in the unemployment rate, from 3.9 to 4.3 percent, may not sound like a lot – but it is. Not only because it represents a further 10,000 New Zealanders officially without work, but also because it’s the sort of news no genuine progressive government ever wants to hear. If progressive government is about anything, then it’s first and foremost about constantly expanding the number of citizens in good jobs with good pay. Any progressive government confronted with a steadily rising tide of joblessness should expect to drown.
Nor is it simply the raw percentage figure of 4.3 percent confronting the Coalition Government. Much more significant is the concomitant rise in the number of young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs). This number now stands at just under 100,000 15-24 year-olds, or 14 percent. A record quarterly rise.
The picture painted by these statistics is not a pretty one. It shows a country in which secure, well-remunerated employment is fast becoming (if it has not already become) the preserve of people over forty. Not only that, but a labour market which has effectively become “grandfathered”.
There is an ever-decreasing layer of the workforce which enjoys good money and good employment contracts – and will go on enjoying them until retirement. For the rest of the workforce, however, simply growing older and more experienced no longer guarantees better pay and conditions. That particular conveyor belt: the one which their predecessors in the workforce rode to a secure prosperity, has been dismantled.
Such work as these younger generations of workers are able to get tends to be indifferently rewarded and undertaken in conditions of considerable precariousness. Even those with impressive tertiary credentials struggle. Those without credentials – the NEETs mentioned above – find themselves consigned to social limbo. A place of living purgatory, inhabited by persons of no economic value beyond that of holding down the wages of the working poor. Those who have not become criminals, addicts or mentally unwell, float like ghosts through a society which has been taught not to see them – because they are not real.
There is absolutely no long-term future for a progressive government which allows this state of affairs to persist. The joyful and unanticipated resurrection of the Left and its ascension into government – which forms the core of Jacinda’s redemptive political narrative – has unmistakeable echoes of the “Harrowing of Hell”. This is the religious tradition that has Christ, in the period between his crucifixion and resurrection, “descending into Hell”. According to the tale, the Son of Man prevails against the Gates of Hell, overcomes its infernal defenders, frees the imprisoned souls, and leads them into the light.
Nothing less is expected of progressive governments. Those locked-up in the social hell of joblessness, mental illness, addiction and economic impotence are supposed to be the very first item on the Left’s “to-do” list. The infernal defenders of Capitalism are supposed to be confronted and defeated, and the imprisoned ones uplifted into the dignity of labour. Only then can the Left’s resurrection be considered genuine.
In the most prosaic political terms, it means that the number of people out of work; and most assuredly, the number of NEETs; must fall – and fall decisively – if the Left is to rise, and stay risen.
I guess Jacinda is not the Messiah.
She’s a very naughty girl – now go away!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plZRe1kPWZw
And how many millions have lived their whole lives waiting for him to come back and save them the way that he said he would ?
You don’t understand religion.
The Wage Slave Labour Party is part of the right-wing neo-liberal machine in No Zealand, and cannot be redeemed, only destroyed… it’s not remotely “Left”, Chris… are you?
Best to not ‘measure’ unemployment rates, why should she stop at dropping Kiwibuild and health measurements, drop the employment measurement too or perhaps ‘recalibrate’?
No it’s not and it should never be.
A progressive government should be ensuring that everyone has an adequate living standard while killing off the bludging of the rich.
We’ve been having high unemployment since the 4th Labour government brought in neo-liberalism in the 1980s.
And it’s not only young people not getting jobs.
The lack of employment is a direct result of leaving it all to the market which is structured to ensure that wages do not rise. In other words, the market will always lean towards high unemployment.
That’s capitalism in all its glory and its been that way for thousands of years.
But we don’t have a government of the Left – just one that slightly less right-wing than National.
A Left government would be dismantling the neo-liberal consensus and dropping out of trade-agreements. This one is signing more of them and entrenching the failure of capitalism further.
Whilst you’re 100% correct Chris, this result is hardly surprising.
The reason is obvious: This government has implemented, or is threatening to implement policies that reduce employment. In particular for those most vulnerable on the bottom rung of the employment ladder.
Some random examples:
Removing the 90 day waiting period for new starts makes employers more cautious about employment, so they hold back a little.
Increasing the minimum wage makes employers think about automation. A higher wage for a labouring job makes an investment in automation have a quicker payback, so some will make the investment.
By threatening to bring back 1960’s style pay awards they have once again undermined job opportunities. Job creating investments that might have been made here get spent elsewhere. A company considering expansion might not.
The agglomeration of all these micro decisions by managers and consumers is what drives GDP and GDP growth has halved since they took over, and shows ever sign is falling further.
And while you go on about GDP, you write as if New Zealand is totally isolated from what happens in the rest of the world, right?!
There is great uncertainty in many parts of the world and its economy. Look at China, slower growth than in at least a decade, look at the trade tensions between the Orange Orang Utan in the White House and Mainland China, look at economies in Europe slowing, look at the first sings of troubles within the US, look at the emerging market economies tanking, for years now.
And due to all this, NZ economic sentiment is also waning, or more cautious. All else you listed could be having little effect, were it not for the more negative outlook globally. And re Kiwibuild and so, there are still others building, and employing the scarce few skilled construction workers there are.
The minimum wage increase may hurt a few small operators already paying slave wages, but many are family operations and the like, they will simply put in more hours themselves instead of hiring new low paid staff.
What is fact is that this government inherited a pig with lipstick, and a basked case economy, that was only propped up by high net immigration, by inviting large numbers of students (also dangled a permanent residence carrot in front of them), and by rebuilding Christchurch for years. Tourism was also boosted, but wherever tourism is a strong part of a country’s economy, it is not a great earner for the workers, as they get paid pittance.
Trouble is this government is not able to sort things out as quickly as they had thought, hence the issues we now have. And they were not quite honest with voters, it was much promise, and the delivery is deficient.
Simon Bridges cannot even keep his caucus functioning it seems, grabbing every silly media opportunity to attack the government, with nonsensical comments and bizarre claims and allegations. So let us see how Jamie Lee Ross will keep irritating him and his lot, it is hardly a government in waiting on the opposition benches.
Using more automation is a Good Thing™
The problem isn’t the automation but the lack economic development. Automation removes job while economic development creates new jobs.
And then there’s the profit drive which off-shores jobs because its apparently cheaper (it physically cannot be). Off-shoring jobs also prevents the development of our economy while encouraging the development of other economies.
It’s not the pay w=awards that have employers worried – its high employment which will push wages up higher than the awards.
You need to watch this all the way to the end.
https://t.co/Iv6dXe6jQM
So I’d like to talk about what capitulation actually looks like. A lot of people say well homelessness and the working poor are in, y’know? There’s huge inequality over here and revolution is around the corner, I’m going to tell you when things really capitulate, it’s not really despair that people have, it’s really more disgust that people hold onto. Even more than that it’s really an indifference to what’s going on. That’s when you really know and it’s going to take awhile to get there because I think a lot of people still care way to much.
There comes a point where people put there hopes in the next big thing as away to recover and people have been doing that, I think when the Berlin Wall came down. People will say a government intervention is just around the corner or we just have to wait for the right leader or wait until this particular technology comes out, or a common one is when people say wait until an institution gets in to settle the market. Y’know? So like wait until this is there or wait until that is there. All this is still having hope, right?
Real capitulation is that hope is all gone, correct? It’s sort of like a lot of people feel disgusted and that they feel like they’ve been deceived or something like that. That’s when you know that capitulation has really happened and that takes awhile to get there because the hope going upwards is usually proportional to the hopelessness at the bottom. And yet things are taking ages to sort of bottom here, which wasn’t the case with the first two bubbles, the mortgage bubble and the Dotcom bubble. But capitulation has been much more with the last two so it’s going to take awhile, it’s going to be a lot of people thinking they’ll just hold out a little longer but it’s when companies start capitulating and you start noticing bankruptcies and things like that, that’s when you really know.
We are not there yet. New Zealand still has a lot of money. Some of NZs companies have billions of dollars and they cashed out a lot during the peaks so NZ inc has coffers that are pretty large and it takes awhile for those companies to sort of petter out a little bit. This is apart of the Austrian Business cycle theory and there’s been a lot of malinvestment whether it be spaghetti junction or making the poor not poor anymore, hedge funds, weird technologies that nobody understood and developers that didn’t know anything. And that malinvestment needs to get punished and until that malinvestment gets punished it’s not real full capitulation and we won’t get back on the cycle of going upwards again.
That said there’s always the possibility of a short term rise and there’s always been that possibility but that’s going to take awhile and you sort of have to wait and see how things play out in the near term to figure out what’s going on in the long term. And I’d hate to be there barer of bad news but I think there’s more bad news coming.
Eloquently though it was put, the comparison of Jacinda’s coalition with the descent of Christ into hell places a very un-warranted amount of pressure on the government.
Ultimately we will need much more than an economy that provides jobs – there will need to be some form of guaranteed basic income along with greater investment in public services – education and health.
Other things to consider are the facilitation of zero growth components within the economy based on “steady state” theory.
Such undertakings will require major shifts in thinking within the electorate around taxation and government engagement in the economy. That is the much bigger task we face.
Seems like Jacinda is a false prophet…
She never was a prophet, she was and is a smart talking, over-rated wannabe ‘leader’, struggling to keep a ship in stormy waters on course (Winston at the helm, she behind him on the bridge, appearing to direct course).
Like every politician left and right, she wrote a bunch of cheques she could never cash.
However, the difference was the size of the cheques and her complete inability to execute.
Anybody with half a brain knew that KiwiBuild would fail and that the 1 Billi9n plants.could not be, if for no other reason than tree planting being a bloody hard job that doesn’t particularly pay very well.
She (probably) won’t lose the next election but she has precious little chance of being successful in getting a 3rd time.
In fact I think she will lose the leadership before the 2023 election.
I spoke to an Indian immigrant recently, here on a work visa, after having done a course some time ago.
He is working on the Visionstream project as an employee of a subcontractor of Chorus, who are laying fibre for the new fibre network for faster internet connections.
It did not surprise me, but he confided to me, that the subcontractor usually has his workers work up to ten or at times more hours a day, but only pays them for eight hours.
That is the kind of shit that goes on, still under this government.
Chorus are doing the kind of technical and maintenance work that a part of Telecom once did, while Spark is selling the services.
That was what happened after Telecom was privatised and split up many years ago.
And like with NZ Post, employing courier drivers as self employed contractors, some of who earn less than the minimum wage after costs, Chorus use subcontractors to do the field work, leaving it to those subcontractors to find the cheap and ‘willing’ workers that work for the more or less minimum wage to stay within the agreement with Chorus to lay the fibre.
This is NZ Inc 2019, it is happening everywhere, we get this nice BS talk from the government, and some NZers and permanent residents may get higher minimum wages and secured tea breaks now, but we still get many immigrant workers who are basically exploited to do the dirty, unpleasant and hard work.
NO NZers work under such conditions, but it is quite ‘legal’ it seems, or at least Chorus get away with this.
Where are First Union, Etu and others, check Chorus and their subcontractors out, please.
The immigrant worker told me also, that until two months ago they were expected to work without pay on Saturdays. That stopped only after Immigration NZ did a check on them.
Immigrant workers put up with all this crap, because their ultimate hope is to get permanent residence.
It is really disgusting what goes on, also sole operators mowing lawns employing children in work with dangerous machinery, which is prohibited:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/child-labour-in-new-zealand-not-only-a-thing-of-the-past-although-not-widespread-alive-and-well-in-nz-in-2018-special-post/
Some good links on the Chorus scandal… what they don’t realise is that that the Natz and Labour government successively have made the rules from Rogernomics to Natz lazy immigration that have allowed this to happen!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12138990
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12171147
(interesting that the share price went up with allegations of corruption and labour being underpaid). So share price and having a decent, fair and honest society are clearly at odds with each other!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12175677
Thanks for contributing those good news reports, you linked to.
I read under the last one:
“To understand the subcontractor controversy, we have to go back to two years before the UFB even began, all the way to 2009.”
” At the time, Telecom’s network division — Chorus — had some 2500 field staff. About half were directly employed by Telecom, the rest by contractors Transfield and Downer.
Telecom’s boss at the time, Paul Reynolds, wanted a radical restructure that would see a third contractor added to the mix — Visionstream (like Transfield and Downer, an Aussie engineering company) and the outsourcing of all network maintenance and upgrades to the trio.”
” Under Reynolds’ plan, all the linesmen employed by Telecom would become one-man businesses who could pitch for work being overseen by Downer, Transfield and Visionstream. Telecom would help by giving them loans to buy vans and gear.
De-unionised labour would be cheaper. But Reynolds also wanted to outsource the risk associated with capital expenditure. Downer, Transfield and Visionstream would each be paid a fixed fee over a multi-year contract.
The 1000 or so linesmen who belonged to the EPMU mounted a series of strikes over the second half of 2009, causing multi-day waits for faults to be fixed.”
So it all started off, and then the union members panicked, and some picked up individual contracts, others followed, as they feared ending up without any work.
Just more union busting measures, sanctioned by the former National led government.
And now we have subcontractors, such as the one I referred to in my comment above, ONLY employing Indian immigrants, or persons on work visas. The Indian worker told me Chorus worked with Immigration NZ, and it was easy to get a visa through them. They obviously also collaborated with some training institutes here (UNITEC was mentioned), who trained some of the workers, who would then end up with work for subcontractors for Chorus, and who would underbid local workers (getting minimum wage, or just above).
And this is STILL going on now, it seems, at least the work with easy to get visas.
I have limited pity for the Indians, they all know what they let themselves into, and they won’t talk, as they all have their eyes firmly set on PERMANENT RESIDENCE.
Only if it will not work out, will they then scream ‘victim’, ‘unfair’, ‘exploitation’ and lament their fate. For the rest the play the game, all for the purpose of getting a foothold in the country. Once they get PR, then the next lot if immigrants will be looked for, as cheap workers, as those getting PR will suddenly not put up with the wages and conditions they had before.
Revolving door, Ponzi Scheme NZ immigration and economic mismanagement, but hardly anybody cares, they want their UFB and spend their time on the web, with frivolous entertainment, and whatever else.
So much for Kiwi loyalty and unity, it does not exist.
Yes I agree with you Marc but I think Kiwi loyalty and unity is being dissolved deliberately by neoliberalism and any dissent is also now handily being drowned out by the woke leftie movement which is allowed to dominate the media.
This helps the right by shifting the middle away from the left and having the ‘other view being the woke left view’ while doing electioneering strategies like importing in right wing voters often inexplicably running food outlets or import/export businesses with some drugs on the side.
Meanwhile the lefties are so busy getting that all important trans toilet signage around NZ and showing solidarity for the world’s unemployed, middle class and super rich buying their way into NZ and granting exceptions that somehow does not fit the priority of about 90% of Kiwi’s born here’s reality.
Also from the MSM you would think the above activities were super popular with the public just like the left’s other favourite also gleefully reported by MSM, of more taxes for the middle class, that disproportionately effect the local middle class who don’t have the loopholes, multiple identities and tax havens that increasingly more and more ‘kiwis on paper’ or multinationals are privy to here…
then we hear about constant water shortages, but somehow you can export water out of NZ for a mere pittance… our politicians will sign the paperwork for criminals to live here or low wage employers, or water rights to foreigners while the next sentence seems to be “we need more taxes for x and y, and we have a water shortage”…
Look how many new taxes they have introduced in Auckland in the last year, petrol taxes, bed taxes, additional rates for new builds, not to house the homeless of course, it’s more money for America’s cup overruns and Atlantis underwater Stadium feasibility reports and a quick trip to China in between… then a photo op with a charity that they give some cash too with a nod wink, keep mouth shut, to pretend to care about the social deprivation they are creating with their vision of the future which conveniently does not make any difference with people born in NZ to people who have just come here with cash to buy residency..
Yeah but dont make light of the Christos… you aint gonna get a parallel here, Chris.No one one will.
But indeed, a so called ‘left ‘ govt should be concerned.
That isn’t looking good.But then, despite the broad brush strokes…what does a new left govt do after 9 years of a far right govt? Or 30 years of a far right ideology?
The only really positive thing to do is strike right at the heart of the ‘Genesis’ of all this- the Employment Contracts Act 1991,…
Outside of this?… you are left tinkering.
And yes we have former PM Jim Bolger working on the case furiously denouncing his former erstwhile eagerness for Ruth’s punitive strike against Trade Unionism… but is this anywhere near enough?
We have a long way to go- and the measure applied to Bolger in his current role can be incrementally applied to 3 long decades of the damage done due to his former Minister of Finance.
I daresay this could be put down to a mathematical formula…
30 years of theft , rort and guile and plundering of the pubic purse multiplied by today’s costs of living and adjusted for inflation , coupled with the old trade union standard of a’job for life’… not necessarily guaranteed by ones credentials or academic career but one based on merit, aptitude and life experience.
The Kiwi way. The Egalitarian way. The ‘ Jack is as good as his Master’ way’…
The way we all remember before the Roger Douglas Mont Pelerin society treasonous way.
The honest way . The way we used to be.
Here Here WK well said, dont forget the complete restoration of the Social Security Act 1964 and the ACC act restored or the right to Sue restored
Yes, Wild Katipo, the way it was.
Yes, Marc, the immigrant supermarket workers in legit jobs are acutely aware that others are exploited and underpaid, and they will speak of it, and unlike govt they are able to differentiate between myth and fact.
The simple thing is that our wages are dropping like a stone, so much so that the 40% of the minimum waged population are in real terms earning less than a single parent with children on a benefit.
That is not to say there is anything wrong with being on a single parent benefit, but more an indication of what has been going on with wages in NZ, when adjusted for inflation and living expenses many wages are so low that you are better off on a benefit because at least then there are more agencies and grants available to help and you have less expenses like transport to get to work!
So surprise surprise that is what people here are forced to do! Aka go on benefits because our wages are lower and they can’t afford to work anymore.
Now we have all the scams with the world’s unemployed being given work visas in NZ for a $45k fee to an agent, which the government is enabling by giving out open work visas like candy allowing the scams to occur when there is no work. https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018681217/chinese-migrant-workers-we-ve-been-cheated
A self employed cleaner in Auckland is charging $30 p/h… but in this survey 50% of tradies apparently are on $25p/h or less in Auckland… not hard to see how to fix the shortages, PAY DECENT RATES! TRAIN PEOPLE WHO EARN ENOUGH TO STAY IN INDUSTRY!
What the industry is paying…
https://www.yudu.co.nz/news/move-to-rotorua-for-better-tradie-pay/44664/
No body seems to mention that high quality tradies will not be retained in the industry with such low wages and the immigration scams are putting better construction firms out of business who are paying real NZ wages, while those construction/engineering/trades firms bringing in more and more people in immigration scams are laughing all the way to the bank but still not delivering any houses but increasing the costs of building by using labour so poor quality and going for the bums on seats approach but still winning the tenders…
Just like the bus company that won the tender from government but then announced they were relying on imported cheap labour to get staff… meanwhile the other tenders had to make their staff redundant and those staff let go were forced into lower wages by the new company or onto a benefit.
The government don’t seem to see the irony of training people for jobs that increasingly in real terms are earning less than being on a benefit when you factor in the costs of work like transport…
$82 million investment to boost employment in the regions
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1902/S00026/82-million-investment-to-boost-employment-in-the-regions.htm
If you need an income of $100+k to afford a Kiwibuild affordable house, how come we have so many tradies on less than half that amount… in a so called skills shortage with the industry braying for more and more people?
Likewise the horticulture industry is going from strength to strength with exports but pays so little and ‘apparently’ can’t find enough workers… perhaps because the work is based below minimum wages and has no security or wages to make up for that lack of security..
So we import in slave workers, then have a housing and health crisis, then worry about the rise of unemployed and spend more money training them, only to have industry in NZ with government corporate welfare pay them so poorly they are better off staying on a benefit?
What you are saying is in simple terms: Wages and also some salaries are too low, and have not kept up with costs for housing, transport and a fair few other things people consider necessary for a life in a ‘first world country’ NZ Inc. likes to count itself to.
One problem is, the world is full of cheap, willing labour, as things are even much worse in other places, some are even reasonably if not even well trained and educated (e.g. India, some Middle Eastern, African and East Asian countries).
So those countries already have a ‘competitive advantage’ by having ample cheap labour enabling cheap production at an industrial and other scale.
New Zealanders do as exporting people compete with them for agricultural goods, some other few goods, services and so forth.
We expect a high living standard, and some stuff we use and consume daily are made by virtual slave labour in other places, at the lower end of the scale the products sold in $2 shops.
New Zealand mostly depends on agricultural exports, so competes with other nations producing the same, also using cheap labour (in the Southern Hemisphere countries like South Africa, Chile, Argentina).
We have a traded currency, so are exposed to currency fluctuations, also speculation, we trade under various FTAs, and are bound by the WTO, and we are tightly tied into international trade networks, forcing NZ Inc. to operate as per usual, like others. The finance system feed the ‘credit’ (debt) on which most if not all operate.
If we increase the minimum wage to say $20 an hour that will be good for some for a time, but it will honestly, due to our dependence on international trade and competition on various ‘markets’, increase costs of labour, e.g. in horticulture, farming, fisheries, elder care, health services, education, cleaning services, retail and so much more. As the bosses and capital owners will NEVER want to cease their control and profit margins, they will simply increase prices. For exporters this may prove fatal for some. There will be others introducing more mechanisation and so forth, which is good, but that requires investment in resources and production that will be needed from offshore, as there are in my memory damned few robot manufacturers and the likes in NZ Inc..
In the end, employers will find ways to go around the law and rules, and they will do all to not employ workers expecting too much, wage growth may stall, due to high minimum wages, that is for all others, and motivation in higher skilled and educated workers may wane.
Hence employers will pressure government to let in more immigrant workers, who will ‘fill the gap’, they will be dangled the carrot PR in front of their noses, and they will come in droves, and will work for the minimum wage and less, i.e. they will pay high costs to the employer for ‘services’ they provide, e.g. housing, accommodation, meals, transport and the likes.
All in all such measures will only help to a small degree for time being, only some workers (I mean minimum wage increase and so), but in the end, prices will go up, rents will go up further, and exporters find it difficult to compete with other agricultural and horticultural exporters in other countries.
Then they will pressure the government to do something about the currency, to have the Reserve Bank law changed, so the currency can be lowered and so forth. Imports will increase in costs, and people keep moaning.
New Zealand needs to sort out more of its shit internally, for sure, and that means increase productivity, produce and do things smarter and better, organise things better, e.g. have government invest heavily in house building and transport and so, but not for indiviualised interests, like KiwiBuild and not for more motorways, bla, bla, bla..
It is time for government to step up, and develop the country with the resources it has, and stop the immigration and foreign investment fed Ponzi Scheme this country has become.
And also deal to the entitlement seeking, property owning, two to three car middle class families, so they get to focus on what is really important. For instance disincentivise the quarter acre section suburban sprawl madness, stop the private motor vehicle transport madness, contributing massively to climate change causing emissions.
We need more state intervention, state management, smart interaction between the state and the large and also small to medium size businesses.
The neoliberal model itself is now redundant, but I fear it will only be dismantled here and elsewhere, if and when the present system finally collapses in a massive crisis.
This present government has no guts to do anything much, it is a rotten compromise, and it takes one step forward, one step backward at the same time all the time.
Yes. There was a leader by the name of David Cunliffe who was of similar mind but was attacked with a vicious smear campaign and eventually run out of town .
That is why we and the planet are screwed. In a word..Greed.
@ Grant, Not Greed, dirty politics and now many in power from the left are more interested in their own personal power and influence (or woke left margins only) or are just in their own little bubble (Jacinda, most of the Greens), than the overall picture, which in this country fast forwarded 5 years is not going to be a pretty sight.
(if what many seem to be agreeing is that wages are going down and unemployment and benefit and hardship need is going up and there are scams a plenty who are getting rich off that)..
The people getting rich or gaining power off the scams or taking money from the scammers in donations are controlling the discourses and have the money and influence to reduce their risks, aka pay for/influence campaigns to get rid of the smarter politicians with more integrity who are considered a threat like Cunliffe, Norman, Bradford, Graham, Harawira… I’m even beginning to miss Turei…
Comments are closed.