Booklet on job strategy

Press, 29 June 1981, Page 2

Booklet on job strategy

Parliamentary reporter The Government has released a booklet explaining its employment strategy. In a 31-page densely illustrated manual. “Jobs and People,’’ it presents its opinions of the causes of unemployment, the groups most affected, short-term and long-term strategies to create employment, and details of help available. It recognises that unemployment is a big problem caused by lack of growth in the economy, and offers a two-pronged solution: recovery of the economy through increased export returns, and job-assistance schemes in the meantime. The export drive would not concentrate exclusively on big energy developments but also on agriculture, horticulture. forestry, manufacturing, and small business.

There was a need to encourage the efficient rather than the inefficient, and to view technological change as a move towards lower production costs creating greater competition and more jobs. Schooling should be more work-oriented, and all agencies eligible for work-subsidy schemes must use them.

“Government employment programmes are not being fully used,” the report says. “There is now a heavy responsibility on employers, unions, regional and local bodies, and community agencies to exploit these schemes.”

New Zealand had one of the highest rates of Govern-ment-assisted job creation in the Western world.

Copies of the report will be available free from the Labour and Social Welfare departments later this week.