Last week I asked Paula Bennett a few questions about the number of young people who are currently unemployed. The numbers are pretty poor. At the end of March there were 11,510 people aged 18 to 24 in receipt of an Unemployment-related Benefit. The number of unemployed is even higher still.
Before the Budget I hosted a Youth Job Summit in Wellington, which generated a few new ideas to tackle youth unemployment including guaranteeing employment or skills training for long-term unemployed people under the age of 25, something that is currently being piloted in the UK.
The then Minister for Work and Pensions, James Purnell, said the following about job creation initiatives announced in the UK Budget:
“We will invest £3bn in more help for jobseekers, including offering long-term unemployed people 250,000 jobs across the private and public sector. Through the innovative Future Jobs Fund, we will provide 150,000 new jobs in local communities and across the voluntary sector, whilst every 18-24 year old at risk of being unemployed for more than a year will have access to work or training.”
He then promptly left Cabinet (on an entirely unrelated matter).
What do you think? Is guaranteeing employment or skills training for long-term unemployed young people a viable policy idea for New Zealand?
Youth unemployment is a pretty hard issue, now that adult employment is also an issue. It really needs out of the box thinking, and any scheme would require really tight ie. costly, supervision given behavioral problems, peer pressure, and lack of family support. I always wondered why young people don’t have access to camps, like computer camps, yes even band camp (this is the opposite of the bootcamp idea, kids actually want to go there and its more a reward)? Another thing, I’ve been in I.T. courses that really work for younger kids 15, 16, from poor neighbourhoods at polytechnics, but cut them loose after graduating and the same promising kids end up working at the petrol station (I’ve literally seen this), or more commonly not at all. Its almost like you need a further step, a post-training psuedo-workplace-incubator, so they get the financial rewards and job experience in a more forgiving environment, but also keep the comraderie and friendship from the training. Just my 2 cents.
Slightly off thread but Purnell was in NZ and met with Dazza and me less than a week b4 he quit. Fortnight today.
On thread – if there was ever a right time to progress this it is now. It is the best long term capital investment we could make and because of the economic downturn we have the teaching resources available.
Guaranteeing employment is probably not feasible. Guaranteeing training (in institutions or apprenticeships) probably needs to go beyond just the long-term youth unemployed to youth in general. Given the recession, and that at least a third of new hires are youth, a lot of young people are going to be out of work. Unfortunately the current policy settings, with what looks like cuts to the tertiary education budget in outyears, there will be less opportunity for tertiary study, in addition to less work opportunities. Not sure what justification could be, given that to some extent reduced tertiary funding would just shift costs to benefits, but remove the opportunity or “aspiration”. The baby blip from the early 1990s is also just entering the 18-24 year age group, so it is a crucial time to ensure that a long period of unemployment does not scar this cohort’s long-term employment outcomes and consequently other social outcomes.
Speaking of the employment situation, Junior Achievement just put out a new report about how the country needs a more “Entrepreneurial Workforce” to remain competitive. It’s kind of a different way of looking at the problem. Here’s the link http://www.ja.org/files/The_Entrepreneurial_Workforce_full-11.pdf.
Yawn..
Same old puffery and nonsense. Same old stodgy language- “job creation” “youth job summit” “new ideas” ( a real laff that one)”guaranteeing employment” “skills training” “piloted in the UK” (a greater laff) “job creation initiatives” “innovative Future Jobs Fund” (barf)
So utterly fake.
I wonder what it is with you people when you keep doing and saying the same old thing, using the same tired old phrases, (always beaten up as if its something new), yet always in the end, producing the same old result (look how fast the UK is sinking).
Please please please- JUST LEAVE US ALONE.
We do not need you “looking out for us”.
Taking our money that we have earned and using it the way you think is best.
“Implementing” all your same old same old same old schemes dressed in new language and with new faces.
You really want to help people find jobs??
Then the first thing you need to do is start slashing the size of government. Every government job is a small millstone around the neck of every productive worker in this country. All together, those government jobs amount to one hell of a millstone, especially in a small country.
The key is PRODUCTIVITY and PRODUCTIVE JOBS. Every non productive fake job “created ” by legislators makes it more difficult for the real economy to generate real jobs.
You really want to grow the economy and help people?
Then get out of government and stop using money you take from the hard working NZ middle class to pander to ideas that were dreamed up at the beginning of last century and now, as time has passed, have been exposed as unworkable.
Most of all, give up your obsession with power and your doctrinal hatred of the free market and capitalism, that system that has never been given a real chance in the modern context. For decades now, “mixed economies” (government private, that if I wanted to I could easily call neo-fascism) have been tried in Europe, the US and Australia and NZ.
The totally free market is the only thing that hasn’t been tried. You say you want something new, then that is new.
Put aside your obsession with power. Get out of our lives. Get out of our pockets. Cease your doctrinal hatred of Capitalism. Stop regulating and taxing and stop your ever expanding interference. Let people who earn the money spend it as they wish to spend it.
Most of all, please please please stop using the language you have used above. I can live with all the rest, (well I have to don’t I) but the inference that we’re all that damn stoopid that we will fall again and again for more of that same old same old socialist rubbish is just too much.
Wow, apologies for the double post. Dunno what happened there. Sorry.
[Fixed - Trevor]
Thanks for the feedback.
I agree with you Julia, the guaranteed employment aspect is difficult. I’ll keep an eye on how the Birts deal with this part, but I suspect a greater percentage of young people will be moved into skills training as a first step.
And thanks for the link Vanessa. I’ll take a look.