Official jobless figure too low?

Press, 17 November 1981, Page 6

Official jobless figure too low?

PA Wellington The number of unemployed at the end of March was about 28 per cent higher than official Labour Department estimates, according to census figures. Official unemployment figures are based oh the number of jobless registered with the Labour Department, which said it had 47,464 people on its book? at the time of the census. But the census estimate of the number unemployed and seeking work, based on a 10 per cent random sample of those polled, was 60.860. Neither figure included people on special work schemes.

The Labour Department said that it had 15,715 people on work schemes at the end of March. The full-time labour force rose more than 72.000, or 5.7 per cent, in the last five years, to 1.33 million. The figure comprised all those aged 15 years or more living in New Zealand and working at least 20 hours a week for financial gain, plus those unemployed and seeking work.

The number of unemployed in the five years since

the 1976 census to the end of March this year more than doubled from 25.530 to 60,860. Average earnings figures were $11,658 for men and $7504 for women. In the 1976 the figures were $5712 and $3455. The Minister of Labour (Mr Bolger) said that the census unemployment figures “debunked entirely” the exaggerated claims put out by both the Labour and Social Credit. parties. “The census figure of 60,860 people ‘unemployed and seeking work’ is in stark contrast to the widely publicised alarmist claims earlier in the year of sociologists and others not in touch with reality that the socalled real level of unemployment was between 150,000 and 300,000," said Mr Bolger. He said that the figures showed people were now more prepared to register with the Labour Department than at the time of the previous censuses. In 1976 the census unemployed figure was five times those registered, while in 1971 it was times, and in 1966 23 times. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling) said in

Christchurch yesterday that the unemployment showed? by a breakdown of the census supported the Labour) Party’s predictions that un--employment. was muchhigher than was being shown by official Governmentfigures. With those involved in special work or in regional schemes the total number ofunemployed would be more : than 190,000 — just as-. Labour had predicted. “It totals up to what I have been saying." said Mr Rowling. “We are talking about the wastage of. give or take a few thousand, a quarter of a million New Zealand lives to the New Zealand economy. “When you consider the size of the country, and consider that in six years you can waste a quarter of a million lives, you have got one heck of a testimonial of an Administration." Mr Rowling said that the census did not take into account the school leavers who would be looking for jobs next month, or the students seeking holiday work to put them through university or polytechnic next year.