Council of Trade Unions media release
26 January 2011

Where are the jobs in Prime Minister’s ‘bright future’?

John Key’s vision of a ‘brighter future’ sheds no light on what the Government is going to do about unemployment or wages, said CTU President Helen Kelly today. Without concerted action on unemployment ordinary people will not be able to afford the luxury of saving.

Helen Kelly said: “The central plank of the Prime Minister’s speech seemed to be about cutting public spending even further. Having already axed thousands of public service jobs, this is only going to make the dole queue longer, not shorter.”

“John Key says the economy is recovering, but clearly it isn’t. GDP fell in the September quarter. Unemployment remains at 6.4 percent, and most forecasts have it falling only slowly if at all for some years. This is devastating for those looking for work He claims his recipe of slashing public spending and privatising state owned enterprises is the Government showing ‘interest in what works, not in following any particular ideology’. Sadly, ideology is precisely what it is, and a failed one at that. It is easy to see what is not working – 150,000 New Zealanders aren’t working, and yet the Prime Minister has nothing to say to them.”

“People won’t be able to save, or to buy more New Zealand goods and services until their incomes begin to rise and job opportunities improve. Even when productivity has risen, wages for low and middle income workers haven’t followed.”

“The government needs a skills strategy and a wages strategy. Otherwise it will never properly address the issues of investment and debt.”

ENDS

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