10,000 jobs at risk—union head

Press, 4 December 1978, Page 24

10,000 jobs at risk—union head

PA Dunedin About 10,000 jobs in insurance and banking in New Zealand might be lost as a direct -esult of technology. The general secretary of the Insurance Workers’ Union (Mr G. T. Ogilvie) told the annual conference in Dunedin that the big impact of technology over the next decade would be in the white-collar sector. He said that reports after detailed overseas studies showed that by 1990, between 30 and 40 per cent of all insurance and banking jobs would disappear. In New Zealand, that meant that the number of people employed in the field would drop from 30,000 to 20,000. New Zealand was particularly vulnerable because of the high proportion of businesses which were controlled from overseas by multi-national corporations, M Ogilvie said. “The implications of this are that what happens

in New Zealand in the area of new technology, company operations and the effect on employment will be determined by the decisions in American, Japanese and British board rooms,” he said. Mr Ogilvie said that the insurance industry had already experienced retrenchment and reorganisations which included redundancy agreements, n o n-replacement programmes and centralisation. About 20 per cent of jobs had been lost in Dunedin and Hamilton because of centralisaiton alone, he said. “The introduction of word processing in five larger insurance offices has already seen the elimination of about 80 typing jobs, with a reduction of up to 60 per cent of the typing jobs in those offices. “These problems will lead to larger ones affect* ing unions concerned and must oe tackled urgently,” Mr Ogilvie said.