The Problem

It's widely accepted that the employment crisis here reflects the situation of most Western industrial countries.

Young people have borne the brunt of the employment crisis which has been occuring throughout the Western world. Youth unemployment in many Western countries is on average, three times higher than the adult rate.

In New Zealand, 52% of the registered unemployed are under the age of 20. Of these, 72% of all female unemployed are under the age of 20. The corresponding male figure is 41%.

There are a number of identifiable reasons for a higher unemployment rate in NZ. These are the obvious reasons, which are politically controlled. They include deliberate government policy to deflate the economy, by reducing wage levels and living standards, reduction in government expenditure, staff ceilings for government departments and so on.

Attempts have been made to smother the unemployment problem in a humber of ways, thus to reducing the visibility of the problem to the public. Unemployment statistics are fudged by ignoring accepted international standards for measuring un-employment; employment levels of special workers in government departments are built up by make work schemes and so on.

The second part of the government response has been to offer an array of tax incentives, government financial and advisory services, wage subsidies to private businesses in order that the economy can recover on the basis of an export led drive, and that a number of unemployed workers can be 'soaked' up.

The contradictions which this approach raises are obvious. An export drive requires a docile work force which is prepared to accept lower wage levels in order for our goods to be more competitive internationally. As wage levels have surely been reduced, so has internal demand. There have been cutbacks in production, idle plant capacity and more unemployed. It is generally accepted that an export drive must be based on a secure domestic market. Rising unemployment and static levels of productivity are hardly the thing on which to base this.

An export drive requires high levels of productivity. This can only be achieved by reducing input in terms of labour costs — or by increasing output — by getting more work from the existing work force by the application of more plant. But more productivity with fewer workers and more plant mean fewer work opportunities.

There are other factors which will mean also fewer work opportunities for younger people. First there is the fact that more people are coming onto the employment market than ever before. In 1956, there were 103,700 people under 20 in the work force. By 1976, this figure had risen to 162,000.

Secondly, there are changing social attitudes to married women working, and the economic necessity for many of them to work. This has meant that the female participation rate in the work force has increased.

The right of all people to paid employment must now be accepted. When we combine these sorts of things with a falling demand for our agricultural products, growing trade protectionism, rapidly escalating energy prices and higher costs on imported manufactured goods, we have the makings of a major employment crisis.