Take your pick. The facts remain. In seasonally adjusted terms, the number of people employed dropped by 29,000 (1.3 percent) in the March 2008 quarter.
Having browsed through the tables a few things stand out;
The biggest increase in unemployment is in the 20-24 year-old age group with 18,000 unemployed up at the end of March, up from 11,000 in December.
The Pacific unemployment rate has jumped from 4.8 in December to 8.2 percent in March.
One parent with dependent children only households where nobody is employed have increased from 38.9 to 45.6 percent.
Well I hate to say I said so, but I did. The downward trend of the DPB is plateauing.
But I have just realised something worse. Usually employment grows between December and March. The opposite has happened.
3 comments:
"The downward trend of the DPB is plateauing."
That presumably means that WFF numbers should go down as well because the solo parents that moved onto it will drop away. They were probably part timers who just made the 20 hour qualification, and logically the portion of the workforce most at risk?
JC
Who's surprised - that's the usual result of huge increases in benefits and the minimum wage!
The one thing that needs to happen urgently will not happen: that is realigning wage rates with productivity - or at least it will not happen until the government changes!
Instead - we have wage rates, especially in the public service, going up & up & up. Perhaps the New Govt can start Fiji style: a mandatory 30% wage cut for all public servants except police, prison guards, and armed forces. That would at least start things off on the right foot.
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