unemployment

Paula Bennett has confirmed that there are less bludgers taking from the taxpayer…29,000 less bludgers.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said there were now 29,000 fewer New Zealanders receiving benefits since the last quarter, the lowest number of beneficiaries at this time of year since 2009.

She said more than 17,600 people went off the unemployment, domestic purposes and sickness benefits and into work in the last quarter.

There are now 310,146 people on benefits, including 92,550 sole parents on DPB, 58,208 on sickness benefits and 48,756 on unemployment benefits.  Read more »

Rodney Hide reprises his article of last week about auctioning the unemployed on Trade Me:

Last week’s column to auction the unemployed on Trade Me generated great discussion across the internet. Some thought it a good idea, many opposed it, there were many good suggestions and there were some sharp criticism.

Let’s consider the major criticisms.

The first was one of the scheme’s political practicality. “Which government or political party in power would have the balls to introduce the scheme?” The key aspect is how accepted the reform is at the next election and how much pain is endured getting there.

There’s no doubt the opposition parties would have a field day on the Warstler scheme’s introduction. There would be the usual allegations of “slave labour” and the sale of body parts, but then what?

By and large his suggestion passed un-noticed as the media focussed on important things like John Key’s mother’s best friend’s kid, studiously ignoring this and David Shearer’s dodgy offshore bank account.

The 50,000 get work and get paid. How do you campaign against that? Within two years we would struggle to recall that we ever did things differently.

The second identified problem was the impact on the already employed. Certainly, there would be a short-run effect in shifting 50,000 people into work. How much I do not know. But I suspect it would be hardly noticeable.

I can’t imagine a mass layoff of workers on the minimum wage so that employers can bid each week for someone on the dole. Employers prefer the staff they have to people they don’t know and the 50,000 will undoubtedly be mostly employed doing jobs that now aren’t being done.

Besides, a significant black market already exists in jobs being done by people claiming the dole. That would cease.

Not a single person has shown how it couldn’t work. Mostly those opposed just hurl personal abuse as is often the way with the left.

There were a number of comments with the following general theme: “Less focus on dole bashing and more on upskilling, you right-wing tool.”

But for the unemployed, especially the young and unemployed, there is no greater upskilling than being in the paid workforce, being productive, and learning to do a good job.

For most, it’s less about upskilling and more about getting into work and learning to work.

Jchaa336 declared, “there is no way in hell, ever, that I am going to work 40 hours for 40 extra bucks. Come on!” I don’t think Jchaa336 understands the scheme. If the unemployed refuse too many jobs their dole is cut. That’s the point.

The unemployment benefit is not without obligations and the real issue is not Jchaa336 refusing to work but taxpayers refusing to support him or her to do nothing.

One commenter opposed the scheme “because it might work. Creating a functioning market for peasants is not a good idea”.

I don’t think the unemployed are peasants. And the entire point is to create a functioning market for the unemployed. It’s the lack of a “functioning market” that has people unemployed and shut of contributing to society.

Sadly there is an element in society who think that it is the government’s responsibility to up-skill the indolent. Name me one thing the government does efficiently. If the government is the answer it must have been a bloody stupid question.

One persistent and understandable concern is the potential for fraud. I could employ my sister, for example, and she could employ me. We could agree that we each do nothing. Or employers could pay workers under the table and thereby keep the full government subsidy.

Of course, there is considerable fraud now. And many on the unemployment benefit are already doing jobs under the table. The question is whether the Warstler scheme would increase the fraud or decrease it.

It would seem to me that the scheme would dramatically reduce fraud.

First, the numbers of unemployed not working would diminish to close to zero. Second, the transactions would be transparent and public on the internet. Third, bad and dodgy employers would be exposed on the internet.

The Warstler scheme has survived its first test: there’s been no knock-down criticism from the commentators.

Exactly…not a peep of any well thought out (peer-reviewed even) opposition to Rodney’s idea.

The Dompost article from Narelle Henson highlights the general despair that many employers face with inadequate applicants for jobs.

Lindsay Mitchell explains why some people can’t get jobs:

Employers occasionally speak out about their difficulty in getting good people. It’s more often a lament heard on talkback radio than read in print but the stories aren’t uncommon. I don’t doubt their veracity and they make me angry, despairing and worried.

These ‘inadequates’ to put it politely will doubtless be passing on their own attitudes and impaired intelligences to their children. I fear that cutting off their benefit incomes won’t motivate them positively. It’ll just turn them into more resentful, more bitter and more desperate characters.  Read more »

Rodney Hide has hit on a brilliant idea, auction the unemployed on Trademe.

To be fair it wasn’t his idea, but he is certainly looking into it.

We have 50,000 people on the unemployment benefit and plenty of work that needs doing. The 50,000 represent 1000 years of work that doesn’t get done each and every week. The waste is horrific.

The waste follows from the failure to match the unemployed to the jobs that need doing at a price potential employers are willing to pay.

The matching part of the problem is a perfect job for the internet. And, sure enough, US techno whizz Morgan Warstler has the fix: match the jobs and the unemployed on eBay and pay them through Paypal.

In New Zealand our equivalent, Trade Me, is the perfect set-up linking Kiwis wanting to sell with those wanting to buy. It’s similarly perfect for matching those looking for work with those with jobs that need doing. Trade Me should be used to match jobseekers to jobs.

Under the Warstler scheme the unemployed would register on Trade Me to receive their benefit payment each Friday night.  At present, an unemployed 20-year-old receives a benefit payment of $190.84 gross a week.  Let’s make that $200.

Once an unemployed person is registered on Trade Me anyone wanting work done can bid for them to do it.  It’s the perfect way to match the jobs that need doing to those who can do them.   Read more »

Continuing the “can’t get a job in Christchurch” theme…a reader emails this sign that is displayed by CoverStaff in Christchurch:

Businesses are struggling to find staff in Christchurch for job, even when there is 5.2% unemployment.

There are calls to free up immigration because the out of work bludgers in Christchurch are too lazy and too fussy to the jobs on offer.

Things appear to be looking up in Christchurch…businesses are reporting that there is no one to fill vacancies for jobs:

Some of Christchurch’s biggest employers are calling for more unskilled immigrants to be allowed into New Zealand to fill job vacancies.

While the city calls for tradesmen, engineers and management-level workers as the rebuild gets into full swing, some businesses say there is a similar need for those willing to do low-paid, unskilled work.

Trish Paterson, recruitment manager for Christchurch-based employment agency Ryan Recruitment, said many local companies were struggling to fill positions that required no qualifications or skills that can be learned on the job.

“It’s not so much that [jobs] are not available, but in a lot of cases they are paying minimum wage and there are other employers paying more, even if it is only 50c per hour, people will move jobs for that,” she said.

The company was even struggling to find people to stand with Stop/Go signs to manage traffic at road works.

Employers needed to adjust their expectations, she said.

“The old attitude ‘if they want the job they have to fit in with us’ is now unrealistic.

“Quite often it is about thinking outside the square . . . taking a more lateral approach and sourcing people that can be trained to do the job, perhaps people they would not have considered in the past.”

Most importantly, Paterson believed, Christchurch needed to bring in more immigrants.

Right so it appears that there are no unemployed at all left in Christchurch…I wonder what the stats say?  Read more »

Continuing examples of lessons from the poverty wars by Peter Cove. His contention is that work, not welfare lift the poor…which was precisely what I was talking about with a couple of left-wingers at the pub on Friday evening.

I’ve become fed up with the useless policies that I once supported, and I’m trying to change the strategy of our bogged-down army.

We know for certain that income transfers, the preferred tactic of generations of liberals, have utterly failed to end poverty. My firsthand experience with welfare clients has shown me why: being on the dole encourages dependency. Working at a real job, by contrast, is the surest way for a person to climb out of poverty. Accordingly, the surest way for the government to fight poverty is to eliminate cash assistance almost entirely and offer jobs instead.

Fortunately the left-wingers at the table all agreed with that sentiment, unfortunately others still prefer the destruction of welfare.

Welfare isn’t working…if it did we would have solved the issue of poverty long ago. Getting people into work is what is needs…and almost any job is good enough.

Read more »

Charles Krauthammer explains why it is that unions kill jobs:

The fact is that in the right-to-work states, unemployment is 6.9%. And in the other stays the non-right-to-work, it’s 8.7. So you can choose to have fewer workers who enjoy higher, inflated, unnatural, if you like, wages, uncompetitive wages. Or you can have competitive wages and more people employed, more people with the dignity of a job and less unemployment, more taxation and more activity. I think it’s it the right choice but I understand how it’s a wrenching choice.

While the left moans about a situation where around 93% of the population are gainfully employed and speak like it is the end of the world have a thought about what their plans for the economy, printing money and more debt, would do to the economy.

Fortunately we do not have to look that far to see what happens when a country becomes addicted to debt and does not face up to reality:

Greek unemployment rose to 25.4pc in August. Youth unemployment rose to 58pc.

Under the official forecast, the economy will contract by a further 4.5pc next year, so it fair to assume that lots more people are going to lose their jobs. It is certainly not going to improve in any meaningful way for years to come.

This is what happens when you lock into the wrong currency and block the escape routes – or join a “burning building with no exits” in the words of William Hague.

Even if Greeks comply with all demands, public debt will reach 179pc of GDP next year. Perhaps there will be some sort of formula to cut debt service costs by shaving 50 basis points off interest on rescue loans, and persuading the ECB to forgo “profits” on its estimated €40 billion holdings of Greek bonds (though unrealised profits would seem be courting fate).

Yet it is hard to see how the salary and pension cuts, etc, pushed through the Greek parliament last night with enormous difficulty can do any more than buy a few months’ delay. The protests on Wednesday bordered on urban guerrilla warfare. It will not take much to cross that line.

Even if the EMU machine succeeds in keeping Greece in the system, is this any longer a remotely desirable goal? Has it not become a vicious and immoral policy in itself?

Iain Duncan Smith discusses welfare in the UK with terms and tones that should be used here:

In his first major speech since publicly agreeing to draw up another £10 billion of benefits savings, the Work and Pensions Secretary will insist that the system must return to the principles of William Beveridge, the founder of the modern welfare state.

Mr Duncan Smith will say: “All too often, government’s response to social breakdown has been a classic case of ‘patching’ — a case of handing money out, containing problems and limiting the damage but, in doing so, supporting — even reinforcing — dysfunctional behaviour.