Beware alternative data threat
Linking drugs to unemployment is lazy labelling when the issues are complex. Shamubeel Eaqub.
Maybe I just noticed it more, but there was an extraordinary use of anecdote in place of data over the past week.
In Trumpian fashion, there was little context and the anecdotes offered do not stand to scrutiny. The appeal to ‘common sense’, ‘it happens all the time’ and other reasons in this vein, was a rejection of experts. The more our politicians and commentariat spout anecdotal nonsense, the more we – the citizens – need to be cynical and questioning.
The Prime Minster suggested we needed migrant workers because Kiwis are drugged up. That is an exaggeration, but that was what the subsequent headlines boiled down to.
There are in fact three different issues. One is around migration. Another is more complex, around drug use, drug harm and criminalisation. The other is the belittling and vilification of the unemployed and beneficiaries.
Net migration is running at record levels. This is because there are more people coming here, and fewer people leaving for Australia.
Fewer people are leaving for Australia because previous, booming economies in Queensland and Western Australia have cooled as the mining investment boom turned to bust. Many Kiwis there are now coming back, because they do not have work and cannot access welfare and other support.
More people are coming to New Zealand too. There are shortages of skilled and unskilled workers. Students were also coming in record numbers, although this is now slowing. Student arrivals increased because there was a political desire to increase international student numbers. More are also coming on resident visas, because New Zealand is an island of calm in troubled international waters.
New Zealand has long used skills as a filter for who migrates here. This is usually referenced against shortages. Surveys of business and wage-setting show there are indeed shortages.
Immigration is a useful shortterm buffer because it means we don’t have to educate and train people to meet these shortages. It is also cheap. Because we get the skills of the migrants with no initial investment in education, health and all other public investment that would go into a New Zealander.
But if we don’t invest in training and education for the longer-term skills needs of the country, then we will be forever reliant on foreign skilled workers. Worse, young Kiwis will not grow up to be able to access the skilled and wellpaid jobs of the future.
We also use migrants and foreign workers for unskilled work. This is because the work is hard, dangerous, low-paid and often seasonal or uncertain – often in the primary sector.
Internationally, when guest work schemes were turned off, farmers either invested in technology (for example, mechanical harvesters), or changed what they grew on their land. Our reliance on low-paid manual labour for some industries is more a reflection of these industries being stuck in the past, rather than a telling reflection of the work ethic of the unemployed.
Drug use is quite likely to be an issue. The Drug Harm Index report on the Ministry of Health website is worth a look for the interested. It shows there are social and economic costs to drug use. But also, that there is in fact very little reliable data. There are issues around criminalisation of drug possession and use, opposed to supply.
Much more work is needed to understand the impact of criminalisation of drug use on getting a job, versus being able to do a job.
For example, recreational use of cannabis may not be that different to how alcohol is used.
The most troubling aspect of the latest spouting of anecdote is the underlying message about the unemployed and beneficiaries.
The implication is that somehow they are this ‘other’ group distanced from ‘normal’ society and that they are undeserving and lazy.
There is little in the data to show that the poor or unemployed are lazy. Rather, the appeal to anecdote and broad generalisations perpetuate that misinformation.
It also hides the more complex reasons we rely on immigration to fill our skill shortages.
As our leaders and commentariat engage in ‘alternative data’, we need to be cynical and question them.
We need to be cynical and question ‘alternative data’.