The Labour party and Green Taliban have been conducting an inquiry into a so-called crisis in manufacturing…basically they are questioning a bunch of tame union flunkies and equally tame Labour aligned business people who manufacture themselves offshore but keep that as a dirty little secret.
However is there really a crisis? Perhaps not. Rob Hosking at NBR reports:
Two of the country’s most beleaguered industries show signs of life in the first batch of this week’s labour market data.
The number of filled jobs rose 0.4% while full-time jobs rose 0.7% in the last three months of 2012, Statistics New Zealand’s quarterly employment survey shows.
The main increases in jobs are in construction, up 6.8%, wholesale trade, up 8.3%, and healthcare and social assistance, up 4.3%.
On an annual basis, average ordinary time hourly earnings rose 2.6% for the year, with the largest increase in manufacturing, up 2.9%, while retail trade rose 2.7%.
Both sectors have been the centre of some political heat, with the prospects for manufacturing, in particular, being the target of the country’s main opposition parties.
Looks like they can cancel their inquiry…the problem has been solved…by the government. Perhaps they might like to go back to doing their jobs instead of manufacturing a crisis on behalf of their union paymasters.
