Jobs scarce, so women ‘give up’

Press, 23 April 1983, Page 7

Jobs scarce, so women ‘give up’

PA Wellington Some married women had given up looking for fulltime employment because jobs were so hard to find, it has been suggested. The chairwoman of the National Advisory Council on . Women’s Employment, Barbara Mabbett, said when releasing the council’s annual report yesterday, that the number of paid full-time women workers

had not increased as much as had been expected. “This slower growth of participation suggests that some married women have withdrawn from the search for full-time work because the labour market is so tough,” she said. Mrs Mabbett said the adverse effects of unemployment among women were most disturbing. “Women make up only .24 per cent of the full-time paid work force blit they are 40 per cent of the registered unemployed,” she said. “Among school leavers registered as unemployed, 60 per cent are female, and these young women remain unemployed for longer than young men,” she said. Mrs Mabbett welcomed the Labour Department’s pilot programme for unemployed women in Taranaki and the Employers’ Federation equal opportunity policy. “New Zealand needs to draw on the talents and skills of all its people and cannot afford to neglect or under-value the contribution of women in the paid work force,” she said.