‘Not just layabouts'

Press, 7 May 1980, Page 3

‘Not just layabouts '

Mr Knox attacked the “popular myth” that New Zealand unemployed comprise more than 50,000 layabouts. Any country providing for its under-privileged had its exploiters, but their number did not grow dramatically from less than 2000 to more than 50,000 in four years. Mr Knox said the unemployed were characterised as “lazy, scruffy, . poorly dressed, unskilled, and illmannered” for which reasons no-one would employ them. “It is not a fault of the unemployed that they are out of work . .- > there is not work for them to do,” Mr Knox said. In February this year,

27,835 people were registered as unemployed. At the same time, 1498 vacancies were registered with the Labour Department. “Even if they all wore suits, cut ■ their hair, and smelled like roses there would not be enough work for 26,337 unemployed,” he said. One factor which tended to disguise the actual unemployment level was high emigration. During 1979 it reached an unprecedented figure of almost 42,000 — a 25.6 per cent increase on 1978. Emigration disguised the actual level of unemployment, and tended to worsen the problem by causing a shortage of skilled workers, Mr Knox said.

Everybody’s "favourite scapegoat,” trade unions, inevitably were blamed for causing unemployment byway of excessive wage demands. Wages were not the only element in business costs that reduced profitability, Mr Knox said. Also, the relationship between investment and employment was not as direct as the argument suggested. For instance, new cars, for directors had minimal effect on creating new jobs. “A decrease in living standards resulting from falling real wages can only lead to a reduction in aggregate demand within New Zealand and therefore to loss of employment.”