Hikoi of Hope: Real Jobs
One of a set of Backgrounders published in 1998, at the time of the HikoiThe Hikoi of Hope has identified that thousands of New Zealanders want and need real jobs. Heading this list are the unemployed. Unemployment contributes directly to despair and hopelessness. The unemployed feel excluded from New Zealand society – both from the opportunity to contribute to it and from its benefits. Unemployment breeds social alienation, especially among young people who have never had paid work. It also costs taxpayers millions of dollars in benefits and lost taxes.But the “jobs problem” extends beyond the official unemployment rate. Frequently overlooked are those who are seeking work but don’t meet the standard definition of “unemployed,” those who are having difficulty obtaining sufficient hours of work each week and those who find themselves juggling multiple jobs to make ends meet. All of these people want real jobs.A real job is secure and produces earnings that are stable and predictable; pays enough to allow people to support themselves and their dependants; and enables people to feel that they belong to and can participate actively in their communities and in wider society.
The Official Situation:
At 30 June this year [1998], there were 140,000 people “officially unemployed” in New Zealand – this is one in every thirteen of those who wanted work. Unemployment is an endemic from Cape Reinga to the Bluff but is concentrated in:- Northland: 40% above the national average- Bay of Plenty: 53% above the national average- East Coast: 23% above the average employment rateAnd, the unemployed are disproportionately:- Young: 35% of unemployed are under 25, while under 25s make up only 19% of the workforce- Maori: 22% of the unemployed, when Maori are less than 9% of work seekers- Pacific Islander: 12% of the unemployed when they are less than 4% of work seekers
Other Work Seekers:
Our statistical surveys also record figures on those who see themselves as unemployed but do not meet all the standards needed to be classified as unemployed, for example those on short term training courses who are not available to start work straight away.- 226,000 people – or one in eight – classified by Statistics NZ as “jobless” in March. These are people who are “without a job and want a job” but do not all meet the “official” definition of unemployed.- The unemployment benefit is only paid if no family member has a primary income. Currently 150,000 unemployment benefits are being paid out- 125,000 part-time workers want longer hours or full time work- 162,000 workers are looking for another job (they could include some of the under-employed part timers).
Where have the new jobs gone?
The New Zealand economy has been creating jobs in the 1990s, but not in enough numbers to really address unemployment. While 220,000 new jobs have been created since 1990, the numbers on unemployment benefits still went up! The reasons for this are:- The extra jobs barely kept up with the demand for jobs from school leavers and new immigrants.- The jobs went to members of families where one adult already had a job.- The job growth missed those families and communities that had been displaced during economic restructuring.
The job rich and the job poor:
While there is not enough paid work to go around, the jobs that do exist are unequally distributed, missing those families and neighbourhoods that need jobs the most and creating job-rich and job-poor communities.- Between 1986 and 1996, the number of families with two adults in jobs increased by 60,000, but the number of families with no adult in a job increased by 23,000.- In Otara East, for example, a couple working the average hours had 51 hours of paid work per week between them in 1986. By 1996 this had fallen to 46 hours. By contrast, in Wellington’s Wadestown, the same average couple had more work to start with (71 hours in 1986), but this increased to 77 hours by 1996.- Some communities have been even harder hit. Average weekly hours for a couple in Northland’s Moerewa fell from 60 in 1986 to 38 in 1996.While work is lost in job-poor communities, it tends to be men who lose full time employment. When jobs are found, it tends to be women who get part time, service sector jobs.
The trend towards casualisation
For many New Zealanders, increasingly a “job” means a place on the roster once a week or an on-call position with no guaranteed hours. At the bottom of the socio economic scale this has resulted from rapid growth of service sector jobs (cleaning, hospitality work) where workers have little certainty on a week to week basis of how much work they will get. Work that is intermittent produces income that is so unreliable that it isn’t possible to plan a normal and stable life, let alone plan for the care of dependants. Under these circumstances workers often must have more than one “job” even up to three or four.Higher up the socio economic scale casualisation means fixed term or contract work. Jobs that were previously secure and permanent are now the domain of the “temping” culture.
What does this all mean?
The challenge to create real jobs asks us to re-examine the wider choices we are making as a nation. There has been little real progress on the issue of jobs, most of the policy progress of recent governments has been more concerned with how to organise the unemployed better, rather than healing unemployment itself. Creating real jobs must become, as it once was, a central national economic priority.Kia taea ai te Tangata te whiwhi mahiahakoa ki whea, ahakoa ko wai.Our objective is that every New Zealanderwill have the opportunity to be in paid workMoreSources: Household Labour Force Survey, June 1998 Quarter, Statistics New Zealand, August 1998Labour Market ’97, Statistics New Zealand, June 1998Work Rich and Work Poor Individuals and Families: Changes in the Distribution of Paid Work From 1986 – 1996, Paul Callister, Social Policy JournalSome Spatial Dimensions of Being Work Rich and Work Poor: Changes Between 1986 and 1996, Paul Callister, 1998
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