When was the last time you heard John Key promise 170,000 new jobs? Just before the election in 2011, I reckon. Well, this last year 30,000 jobs were lost. Put that in context, it’s the 3rd largest annual job loss in history. The largest was 1988 as Douglas put the economy to the sword. The next was 2009 during the recession. And now, we’re losing 600 jobs a week during the ‘recovery’.
Oamaru lost 192 jobs on Thursday as Summit Wool Spinners closed its doors. The knock-down effect could claim hundreds more. Events like this can cripple a small town and consign the workers to long-term unemployment. Now, the Greens have revealed that long-term unemployment has quadrupled with John Key at the helm.
National is failing to resolve the lack of jobs as they provide a 14-year high in unemployment – even after exporting 180,000 Kiwis to Australia. If we add them in the unemployment rate doubles to 13.8%. More than 40,000 of those job losses have been in manufacturing. Research says that manufacturing jobs have a multiplier of 2.9, that means about 80,000 other indirect job losses. Combined that’s 2/3rds of our unemployment rate, just by getting back to where we were when National took office.
More work in prisons, fewer mail deliveries, fewer WoF checks. I won’t say these are bad policies – done right there’s some merits. But I will point out this: 2,000 job losses from fewer WoF checks, up to 3,000 jobs gone with three day a week delivery, and the very real risk of prison labour displacing free workers. So much for a relentless focus on jobs.
Because the EPMU put it so well – here’s the summary of their submission to the Manufacturing Inquiry.
Some people who don’t really understand economics think it’s all about confidence – if business would be more confident, they would then invest more and hire more people. In truth, confidence is merely an indicator that the fundamentals for growth are right. So, when Joyce accuses manufacturing bosses of ‘talking down’ the economy, he’s missing the point. Probably intentionally.
Bill English’s priority in 2013 will be to “bed in” welfare reforms. Because that’s where the big fiscal savings lie. He’s hoping to […]
Danyl at Dimpost has discovered that National is so serious about (enhancing) the drain of jobs and Kiwis to Australia that they’ve actually […]
For the 5th year running, it’s that time of year, when the economists start promising the recovery is here. (remember ‘green shoots‘ in 2009?) Meanwhile, in the real world, there are twice as many jobless Kiwis as five years ago, and rising. If the pattern holds, later this year the economists will be lamenting the mysterious under-performance of the economy, as petrol hits a record price again.
The Herald’s running a pretty intense series about how awful it is to emigrate to Australia. A cynic might think the editor’s daughter is talking about crossing the ditch, such is the passion in the anti-Aussie message. But all the stories follow the same pattern: ‘Aussie is bad because of X, yet Kiwis are flocking there in record numbers’. There’s one number that matters: here it’s 7.3%, in Aussie 5.3%.
We all know, because that Nice Man Mr Key told us, the government can’t create jobs. That is, unless it has given away $67m to international bully boys and wants to show a return on investment. Then, it can create 3,000 jobs out of thin air. It turns out, that’s where the claim that the Hobbit films created 3,000 Kiwi jobs came from. But it gets worse.
Today, Fran O’Sullivan calls Key out on his complete failure on jobs: “If I have one New Year’s wish it is that John Key returns from his Hawaiian summer holiday brimming with enough determination to challenge the nation’s employers – and himself – to tackle youth unemployment.” In fact, she is the latest of the rightwing’s pundits to conclude neoliberalism has failed.
This Sunday hip hop artist and political activist Darius Mirshahi will be speaking in Auckland about the political situation in Canada and how the left are organising to resist Neo-Liberalism. Later he will be performing material which has lead to attention from Glen Beck and the Canadian police.
On Monday, Steven Joyce promised lots of new jobs in the wood manufacturing industry thanks to the wonders of foreign investment and a do nothing government, and called the Left anti-jobs. On Wednesday, wood manufacturer Norske Skog sacked 110 workers. What’s Joyce’s next trick, attend a funeral, tell the departed to ‘wake up’, and blame the rest of the congregation when he doesn’t?
Like here, Queensland’s tourism industry is hurting. Like ours, Queensland’s Tourism Minister thought it would be a good idea to holiday in a foreign tropical resort instead of supporting her local industry. But, there, the main newspaper responded with a devastating “where the bloody hell are you” attack that could sink her career. Here, not so much.
I went to the supermarket and said “I want your best meat for $9 a kg”. They said I could have pre-cooked sausages or the cheapest mince for that. But I wanted good meat! So I went to other supermarkets and butchers. Some wouldn’t sell me anything for that much, none would supply the quality I wanted. They say I’m mad. But, when this business does it, they’re the victims.
Steven Joyce pops up today in the Herald to promise more jobs. Apparently, the Chinese are going to invest in wood manufacturing here because the power’s cheap. Funny, the power’s been the same price for a while and… um… wood manufacturing has collapsed 15% under Joyce’s watch. Looks like another hollow promise from the least successful economic development minister in history.
Over the last year some issues have been under-reported, some ignored: the climate/environment, subversive FBI activities, bankster rorts, decline of democracy, the need for new left & green politics. Some news has been overdramatised, some masks the real needs. And the “fiscal cliff”?
Japan just elected a Liberal Democrat government promising more jobs through a huge quantitative easing programme. The US has stated it’ll continue QE until unemployment drops below 6.5%. The effect has been to send our dollar to new highs, killing exporters and import-exposed local businesses. Contrary to media belief, Japan and the US aren’t in worse positions than us.
Green Party co-leader, Metiria Turei, was confident and clear on TV3, talking about their consistent, disciplined & successful year &: the RONS tax, MP pay rise, government’s poor record, the economy, printing money, jobs, equality issues and child poverty. Little on green issues. Zero on the climate. [Update] Turei RNZ interviews.
In Budget 2011, National made a big song and dance over the projection that ‘they’ would create 170,000 jobs in the next four years. Leaving aside the fact that they were counting jobs from the year before in their four year total, the promise basically rested on creating 57,000 jobs this year. So, what’s the latest update on that figure? … 0.
On TV3 this morning, John Key was soothing and slick. All is well on Planet Key, and critics are delusional. He reeled of numbers and facts, but material realities of daily lives, and the suffering of people on low incomes aren’t mentioned. And asset sales?
The House went into recess yesterday. Today there is a rush of stories that are bad news for the government. Collins and the Binnie report, unsuccessful boot camps, and counter-productive anti-union and anti-worker policies. What else?
Another sad chapter in the ongoing collapse of manufacturing in NZ. A particularly bitter chapter, because it didn’t have to be this way.
Away from the front pages of the MSM, there is information about opposition to the TPP. Aside from the secrecy, the TPP is looking far too complex and all-encompassing. There are some protest events coming up in the next few days.
Yesterday Jacinda Ardern questioned Paula Bennett on WINZ paying for beneficiaries to travel to Aussie to get jobs. Did she highlight the government’s poor record on jobs, or inadvertently trigger more MSM bennie-bashing? Do any MPs raise their voices strongly beneficiaries?
A week of [updated: video] protests against the secretive TPP began today outside entrance to Sky City Convention Centre, where the latest round of TPP negotiations are being held. The majority of Kiwis are not happy with the secrecy. Jane Kelsey & Canadian Peter Clark identify problems.
Over the past four years 40,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost (and over a thousand manufacturing companies have shut up shop). The government is in full denial, so the opposition parties have set up their own inquiry. Today is the last day for submissions.
Government has a central role in job creation. Just ask National. They’ll tell you it’s not true, and then proudly proclaim that they got The Hobbit made here, creating 3,000 temporary jobs. According to the New York Times, the total cost of our government’s subsidies for The Hobbit is NZD$150m – $50,000 per short-term job.
Dr Russel Norman: Does it not all boil down to the fact that whichever way you cut it, whichever statistics you care to choose, the Government has failed on jobs, unemployment has grown in New Zealand, and the number of jobs in the manufacturing sector has not grown; and is it not time he just admitted it and figured out what to do about it?
Damn, a kiwi recently moved to aussie explains what the attraction is and isn’t. Basically there is work there, the pay is better, and you can afford to eat out. But kiwi’s can take comfort that the food is crap – unless you go to a restaurant of course. Perhaps their politicians are better than their farmers.
A closer look at the Household Labourforce Survey reveals startling facts: in the four years since the ‘brighter future’ began, in which time […]
John Key knows his economic failures are coming out in to the open, so he came to The Nation this morning expecting a fight. And he knew his lines well and it all sounded good. If you didn’t think about it. Basically, he said the solution to the fact unemployment has risen by 80% under his failed economic policies was… wait for it … his failed economic policies.
Didn’t it make you sick to your stomach when smug Tories getting fat on quarter of a million dollar taxpayer-funded salaries get up in the House and make jokes to deflect from the dire jobs situation?* Well, I know 410,000 Kiwis who are looking for work and aren’t laughing when Key and co make jokes about it.
It was a bizarre Question Time yesterday with Key, English, and Joyce all answering questions on the dire jobs numbers and giving contradictory excuses. It was statistical noise, the wrong statistic to look at, the rest of the world’s fault, pretty good comparatively… But the truth of it is that, any way you cut it, National has failed on jobs.
