CTU Media Release
3 May 2012
Unemployment gets even worse

CTU Secretary, Peter Conway says that the continuing high and rising level of unemployment is alarming. Statistics released today show a 6.7 percent unemployment rate up from 6.4 percent in December. There are now 160,000 people unemployed – 9,000 more than just three months ago. Jobs available are just not increasing fast enough to keep up with people needing jobs.

Peter Conway says “these figures remain unacceptably high. Another worrying aspect is the growing numbers of long term unemployed. The number unemployed for more than a year rose to 19,100, up from 12,800 a year before. 43,800 people, or 25.6 percent of the unemployed, have now been out of work more than 6 months – up from 24.1 percent a year ago.”

Maori and Pasifika unemployment is again disproportionately high at 13.9 percent and 16.0 percent respectively. For Pasifika this is the highest rate ever recorded.

Youth unemployment figures are even more disturbing. “18.0 percent youth unemployment for 15-24 year olds shows the government really needs to bring focus and resource to this growing problem. For 20-24 year olds, the 15.0 percent rate is the highest since 1993. We need to bring back expanded schemes like Job Opportunities and Community Max that focus on young people who are finding it even harder to get jobs.”

Peter Conway says “now is the time boost training in Canterbury. We have not adequately prepared for the massive task that the rebuild is going to be. we need a large scale pre-employment training scheme up and running now. It is a prime example of something that the government can do to get Kiwi’s into work.”

“We need to focus on job creation, support for NZ jobs through government procurement and on skill development rather than just focusing on trying to balance the books in several years time.”

ENDS

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