Stagnate Unemployment rate burns youth – why does this Government hate Auckland so much?
A tiny dip in the national unemployment rate is masking a much uglier reality underneath: rising joblessness among young people and worsening unemployment across New Zealand’s biggest cities as economic pressures deepen.
The unemployment rate has dipped slightly to 5.3%, with 163,000 without work – a decrease from 165,000 in the previous quarter.
The 5.3% unemployment rate for the March quarter followed a 5.4% figure for the previous December quarter, and 5.3% in the September quarter, according to Stats NZ.
It showed a recent improvement in employment, however the data released on Wednesday was retrospective and did not reflect the economic effects of the fuel crisis sparked by the war in the Middle East that began in late February.
The data indicated that joblessness was higher in urban centres, with Auckland’s unemployment rate rising from 6.4% to 6.6%, the highest since 2014. Wellington’s unemployment rate also increased, from 5.8% to 6.3%, the highest since 2015. The highest regional unemployment rate was Bay of Plenty at 7.1%, up from 5.7%.
Stuff
Why are Auckland and Wellington unemployment rates getting worse?
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
WHAT?
Let me get this straight, the Green Shoots of recovery we were promised amounted to a dip of 0.1% while the urban centres and youth jumped in unemployment numbers?
THAT WAS THE GREEN SHOOT?
Is the Government overstating the economic recovery?
How badly have you vandalised the economy for a 0.1% dip in unemployment while it jumps for youth and the cities are a green shoot?
Isn’t it a microscopic margin of error rather than a green shoot?
Isn’t this microbes under a rock on Mars rather than a shoot of green?
So all that fanfare that we had turned the corner and it’s growth, growth, growth now, that amounted to a 0.1% reduction in unemployment WHILE it surges for youth and cities.
That’s the win is it?
Y-e-a-h.
Folks, I’m suggesting doom loop.
This is the past, it ain’t the reality of a spike to $120 a barrel, the economic firestorm Trump’s ill judged military misadventure has generated isn’t in these numbers.
The pain you are feeling is getting worse.
Remember.
This is the 10th week of a three day war that Trump has already won eight times. He has blocked the block with a blockade and declared victory every third evening.
According to Marco Rubio, America attacked Iran because Israel was going to attack Iran, which would have meant Iran would have attacked America which is not a legal defence in any way, shape or form.
He has threatened war crimes and promised genocide as if they are legitimate negotiation positions and his white christian nationalist, raw meat eating Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth recently quoted the Pulp Fiction Bible Quote at a Pentagon Prayer Breakfast for military families.
After obliterating the nuclear weapons last year, Trump has threatened nuclear weapons against the nuclear weapons that Iran aren’t building.
All of this, our Prime Minister wanted to support and join in on.
Remember that as you feel assaulted at the petrol station.
Its probably worse than the statistics suggest. The youth rate would be higherand when linked to ethnicity would be higher again for some groups. Precarity is the reality for many now.
But I’ve never really trusted the unemployment stats. Like all stats they never tell the full story. I may be wrong but in NZ the unemployment rate is measured through the HLFS Survey of Households where criteria are not in a paid job but available for and looking for work. That gives a quarterly snapshot but doesn’t include those already on job seeker benefits or those who are underemployed, that is in part-time work but looking for more hours. Must be a good few of these in the service sector. If data was collected differently and the criteria changed it’d be a different picture. Not a better one either.
Why are we allowing Indian students to work when they come here to study when our own young people can’t get a job. Why has our government done this at a time when the NEET numbers are at a record high. Could we not have waited till our economy is in better shape.
And why are they allowing Indian faith healers to come here at a time all things Maori is getting kicked in the guts by this CoC government . This is showing the current government are bloody hypocrites.
It seems that getting a trade agreement with India was more important than any consequences from that agreement.
Make no bones about it…the unemployment rate is still high…very high…and…it would be significantly higher if it weren’t for the mass exodus to Austrailia.
I am still amazed that National is polling around 29% …it’s the same phenomenon as to why 38% of people in the U.S. would still vote for Trump.
What planet are these people on?
And i hear the media almost gas-lighting the public talking about how things were “coming right” until the Iran / U.S. war fired up ….
Firstly….no…they….weren’t!!
And secondly….The Coalition of Uselessness cannot use the fuel situation as an excuse for anything.
Labour, dealt with a much more worldwide complex situation with Covid that went on for more than 2years and were cut no slack as to why inflation rose…as it did in every other country…and why borrowing went up…as it did in every other country…at the same time saved more lives per capita… than every other country.
What Labour did manage to do is keep unemployment at one of the lowest rates for many a long ….no small achievement.
The ridiculous tax cuts, financial gifts to landlords and tobacco companies and floundering ill conceived economic mismanagement carried out by the Coalition of the Clueless’s finance team, Nikki – no- boats Willis, Bishop, Seymour, and the ” I’m great with numbers” guy, Luxon, have left no money for a rainy day, ignoring the golden rule of financial management.
Just like the U.S., our government also now has us neck deep in a self inflicted quagmire .
We are screwed for a very very long time..
And they did it all in under 2 years…
It will be used in future University lectures for decades to come as a ‘case in point’ example of how not to run a country!