Labour plan to boost youth jobs

Press, 23 October 1980, Page 9

Labour plan to boost youth jobs

NZPA Wellington A Labour government would establish both incentives and penalties to encourage employers to hire young people, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling) has told Auckland employers. Private-sector employers would be expected to play an important part in the youth employment programmes which a Labour government would bring in. The system he proposed, similar to that in West Germany, would run on a basis of incentives and penalties. Employers who did not meet their “responsibilities” under the scheme would be penalised. However, the administration would offer “extensive incentives” for employers to take on and train young people. He considered that the penalty provision of such a scheme would be seldom used.

“The encouragements that would bo offered through a direct job subsidy scheme, and through regional incentives, would provide a powerful incentive to employers to extend their employment

and training opportunities.”

Labour’s proposed employment programme would be run under the personal direction of a Labour Prime Minister and would involve direct representation of major sector groups in the community, he said. Mr Rowling reiterated Labour’s promise to guarantee young New Zealanders either worth-while employment or supplementary training in work skills for the nrst five years of their working lives.

“There will be no dole,” he said, “and no New Zealander will be paid to do nothing, or learn nothing.’’ Mr Rowling blamed New Zealand’s unemployment problem on an education system which did not give job skills adequate priority and an apprenticeship system which had been allowed to wither and the impact of new technology which had been little understood. Labour’s full employment policy, to be announced next week, would include:

— A far stronger role by central government in

the employment and manpower field; — A programme of support and encouragement for private employers to take on and train additional workers; — Elimination of the dole; — A guarantee of employment or supplementary training for all young New Zealanders for tbe first five years of their working lives; and — Greater use of the existing education, training, and work experience within the community. Mr Rowling’s office expanded slightly on his address, saying that where private employers could meet job-creation targets set by the programme, they would qualify for job subsidies. In regions where unemployment was rampant, higher subsidies would be offered. The penalty system could work as a levy against employers and employers would be able to appeal against the levy on economic grounds. The. acting president of the National Youth Council, Mr V. Burke, welcomed the announcement that the scheme would be run under the personal direction of a Labour Prime Minister, saying that this would raise the level of awareness of the problem. But the chief executive of the Employers’ Federation, Mr J. W. Rowe, said he saw little fresh or interesting material in the programme. He welcomed the participation of interested parties, and the incentives for training, but said it was unfair that university and teachers’ college students should get huge subsidies, while young workers setting out to learn other skills should get nothing. The German and New Zealand scenes could not be compared, Mr Rowe said. Germany had “disciplined” trade union and employers’ movements.