Chatting to friends at dinner in a West Coast town last week, we were discussing the fact that many of the local businesses seem to be struggling. Covid is part of the problem of course, as the virus has finally arrived here but it is obvious that this is not the only problem. A few years ago people would struggle to find jobs here. Now, it seems, things are very much the other way around.
But why?
The local diesel servicing place is two people down and they have to close their doors when their lone worker goes out on a job. The most popular local cafe is having to close one day a week because they can’t find workers. The building supply place, apart from not having any materials, is short of delivery drivers. Everywhere, it seems, there are staff shortages, in a place which never had staff shortages until recently.
But why?
One diner quoted her niece, a 19-year-old, who spends 11 hours a day on Instagram. She is not actually looking for a job. Maybe she is hoping to become an internet influencer, but in the meantime, her only income is the dole. Others talked about friends and family who spend most of the day drugged out, usually on weed or meth. I didn’t ask where the money for the drugs came from. It seems that, in this small West Coast town, there are a lot of people who are capable of working but are not even trying to find a job.
And yet the government constantly tells us that we have the lowest rates of unemployment on record. But that is not true. The current definition of ‘unemployed’ is extremely narrow. An unemployed person has to be on the Jobseeker ‘Ready for Work’ Benefit and has to have been actively looking for work in the last four weeks. If they have not, they may still be receiving a benefit, but they are not classed as ‘unemployed’, and so are not included in the actual statistics of unemployed people.
So the young lady on Instagram and the relatives drugged out of their heads all day are not classed as ‘unemployed’, even though they are receiving a benefit because they do not work. This is just another way in which Ardern’s Government is duping us; making the numbers, and their performance as a government, look much better than it really is.
The government, being extremely proactive, have got the answer, of course.
Supporting older people to stay in the workforce and transition their skills as they age and their circumstances change is a key part of the new Older Workers Employment Action Plan, Minister for Social Development and Employment Carmel Sepuloni and Minister for Seniors Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today.
“The government wants every New Zealander who is able to be earning, learning, caring or volunteering to do so,” Carmel Sepuloni said.
Wait. What did she say? She wants “every New Zealander who is able to be earning, learning, caring or volunteering to do so”… when we have a record-high number of people on benefits – just not on the Jobseeker benefit. So shouldn’t they be doing something about that?
It is good to encourage older people to continue to work, if they want to. The problem is that, if young people don’t get into the workforce reasonably quickly, they will become long-term beneficiaries, with no skills and no experience, and will simply stay on the scrap heap and in poverty for the rest of their lives.
Why is the government encouraging this?
We all know that this Labour Government has removed many of the former National government’s incentives to work, insisting that it is demeaning to force people to work for a living. The problem is that our society is beginning to grind to a halt with too many businesses facing staff shortages, meaning they are unable to offer services that people want, and need.
Still, it is all because of Covid… and the war in Ukraine… oh and nine years of neglect.
The Older Workers Employment Action Plan focuses on people aged 50 and over and is made up of 11 action items with a focus on training and upskilling, finding and staying in work, supporting employers to be more inclusive and planning for the effects and opportunities of an aging workforce.
Beehive.govt.nz
It is good to encourage older workers to stay in employment, particularly as we are all living longer and often enjoy good health for longer than before. But at the end of 2021, there were 266,000 people on a long-term benefit, with another 106,400 on the Jobseeker Benefit. That is not an unemployment rate of 3.6 per cent. That is a rate of approximately 11.91 per cent of the working population of New Zealand, not including sickness beneficiaries, superannuitants, solo mothers or those who receive Working for Families. That is a huge burden on the long-suffering taxpayers who go out to work for a living and support an ever-increasing number of people who could find jobs, but can’t be bothered.
The final date for provisional tax payments for the 2022 tax year is 7 May. I have just estimated several clients out of paying tax on that date, not because they don’t want to, but because business in the last few months has spiralled downwards. These are across a number of sectors. It looks to me as if the tax take is starting to fall, as predicted, and once that starts to happen the government will find itself in ever-increasing strife, particularly as they have been planning another $6 billion of spending in the next budget, due later this month.
No matter. Adrian Orr will probably just get the printing press out again and we will take one step closer to becoming the Venezuela of the South Pacific, complete with racial divisions so deep they may never be healed. Remember though: this is not the fault of this Labour Government; it is all supply chains… Ukraine… oh and Covid, of course.