No jobs for 7000 school-leavers

Press, 10 February 1981, Page 1

No jobs for 7000 school-leavers

PA Wellington Official figures released last evening confirmed the Labour Party’s assertion that more than 7000 school-leavers are looking for jobs. The .figure of 7035 as at January 31 compares with 4869 at January 31 last year. At the end of last December 5739 schoolleavers were out of work. Among the latest are 4186 women. Earlier yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling) asserted that a crisis confronted schoolleavers. ' - “The Government has created a -.whole new disaster area,” Mr Rowling said. The total number of registered unemployed dropped over the last month. At the end of January, 47,846 people were registered as unemployed, compared with 49,487 at the end of December. A further: 24,474 people were employed on Governmentsubsidised projects at the end of January. Of the people registered as unemployed at the end

of January. 12,874 were under 18. 10,897 between 18 and 20. and 13,710 between 21 and 29. Nearly 10,000 had been out of work for between four and eight weeks and nearly 6000 for more than six months. Just over 8000 had been looking for work for two to three months. The Minister of Labour (Mr Bolger), said that the main features of the January figures were'' the slower rate of increase in the numbers of schoolleavers seeking assistance to get a first job, the big reduction in the number of . tertiary students registered as unemployed, the equally large increase in the number of tertiary students employed in fully subsidised jobs under the Student Community Service programme, and the significant proportion of the numbers seeking the department’s assistance or in fully subsidised jobs that these 10,841 tertiary students represented. There were 493 fewer unemployed people in Christchurch last month, compared with December,

according to figures released by the Christchurch office of the Department of Labour yesterday. The total for Christchurch for January, was 6820 compared with 7313 in December, making a labour force percentage of 4.57. However the figure is well up on January, 1980, when there were 3964 people without jobs. , School-leavers comprised 809 of last months’ total. The number/ on jobcreation schemes was 4332, an increase of 217 on December. The department’s district superintendent (Mr W. T. Holland) said that 1386 job seekers were placed into the various job-creation programmes last month. Figures for the rest of “The Press” circulation area are (December figures are in parenthesis, and the percentage of ■ the labour force is the third figure mentioned). Blenheim, 430 (345), 3.17; Nelson, 1021, (1074), 4.02; Greymouth. 499, (416), 3.30; Timaru, 629, (620), 2.74.