A moving story of job-seekers
IN THE 19th century, many New Zealanders’ livelihoods relied on digging gold out of the ground. It was a path out of poverty. During those days, thousands flocked to the goldfields, chasing each rush as it came. While only a small few made it big, the collective value of the metal jump-started the colony’s economy.
‘‘Gold,’’ according to the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, ‘‘was the making of early New Zealand.’’
In those days, however, when the booty dried up the worker moved on. In- country migration was, said economist Paul Callister, a necessity.
Now, however, while there might be labour shortages in industries such as dairy, young people facing large- scale unemployment in places such as South Auckland are unwilling to move for work.
Our habits, priorities and abilities to pick up and go, have changed.
So immigrants, such as Filipinos, who did not have such an aversion to relocation, were the ones snapping up those jobs, Callister said.
These days, those who lived around the Hawke’s Bay and once moved regularly around the region for work were shunning the traditional in-country migration and heading straight over to Australia.
‘‘Those people who have got the ability to move may bypass those traditional jobs in New Zealand. With that greater mobility, they can go anywhere.’’
The statistics are grim. Unemployment stands at 7.3 per cent – the highest it has been in 13 years. So grim that even Prime Minister John Key seemed to have been perplexed by them.
‘‘They are just very much at odds with everything else that we see,’’ he said last year.
Callister said it was a problem that economists also often struggled with: How could a seemingly stable economy be so awash with unemployment?
With the energy industry, for example, it was possible to have massive income growth but relatively few jobs created, Callister said. The argument then was that as incomes increased, a smaller number of people had more money to spend on services. But that depended on how well spread that income was.
‘‘ If those in the high- end incomes are going overseas for their trips then that doesn’t work. It’s why you need a strong middle class.’’
In the longer term, despite the present difficulties, Callister was optimistic.
‘‘Kiwis are really good at adapting and sharing work though it’s really tricky in certain regions.’’
Employment, he said, was inevitably linked to the industries in different regions. It was why Northland generally had high unemployment and Taranaki generally had lower unemployment.
However, over the long term, things worked out: Life expectancy and incomes had increased. But there was the possibility of long spells where income inequality reached dangerous highs.
‘‘ Then something has to give. People don’t put up with high unemployment for long.’’