Our official unemployment rate is
artificially low but not for the reasons David Parker
suggests - the high number of New Zealanders leaving for Australia. Any opposition in any country could claim its unemployment rate was
"masked" by people leaving. Where to is irrelevant. Just as governments
can claim their unemployment rates are boosted by people arriving. I don't know what point Parker is trying to make or for what gain. Has he forgotten that Labour kept the unemployment rate down by overseeing rises on the sickness and invalid benefits and sustaining high DPB dependence?
He needn't worry anyway. The unemployment rate is about to become higher. The
new benefit categories which come into play next year...
...will result in a significantly larger number of people on
Jobseeker Support (135,000) than the Unemployment Benefit (50,000).
Although the official unemployment rate is not devised from unemployment benefit numbers, when more people are work-tested they will have to be available and looking for work. That is what constitutes being unemployed.
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Besides, what is wrong exactly with shipping out the unemployed? Only a party in opposition could find a virtue in this phenomenon.
At a time when artisans are leaving, Parker should be emphasising the loss of skilled workers, not the loss of unemployed. Surely a Parker owned goal.
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