Work-force expected to grow 2 p.c. a year

Press, 18 February 1984, Page 30

Work-force expected to grow 2 p.c. a year

Wellington reporter

The New Zealand labour force is projected to increase at a rate of about 2 per cent a year'during the next four years, according to a report from Population Monitoring Group of the Planning Council.

“The New Zealand Population: Patterns of Change” analyses trends in growth, the composition and geographical distribution of the population, and outlines some of the implications of these trends for future policy. This 2 per cent growth rate is higher than the 1.2 per cent growth in the labour force between 197681.

The report said that the 15 to 40 age-group born during the high fertility period from the late 1940 s to the early 1960 s was now exerting tremendous pressure on the work-force. The annual increase in the labour force between 1986 to 1996 would slow again to 1.3 per cent, declining to 0.7 per cent a year from 1997-2006.

More women seeking work and the effect of trends in migration had had particular impacts on the over-all growth rate of the work-force, the report said. Trends affecting men and women seeking paid work

were expected to continue for some time. Over-all, the rate of men seeking full-time paid work had declined during the last 30 years from more than 80 per cent to 77.6 per cent, and was expected to decline further. This decline had been more than offset by the increase in the number of women seeking full-time employment. Women seeking full-time work had risen from the rate of 25 per cent in 1951 to 39.1 per cent, and this rate was expected to increase to 42.6 per cent by 1996, the report said. By then, there would be 58 females for every 100 males in the full-time work-force, compared with 52 in 1981 and 30 in 1951.

If part-time workers were included, the ratio was even closer, with 61 females for every 100 males in 1981. This ratio was likely to increase more quickly than for full-time workers.

Migration patterns also had a big influence on the size and structure of the work-force. Recent immigration (returning) at a time of high unemployment had added to pressure on the labour market in the shortterm, but had the longerterm effect .of slowing down the general ageing of the population. If the fluctuations in re-

cent emigration and return migration stabilised at the present rate of modest net migration gains, the report said, over-all migration might have only a limited effect on population gains. Migration flows between New Zealand and Australia were important. More than 176,000 New Zealanders were living in Australia in 1981, a 97 per cent increase on the 1976 figure, while almost 44,000 Australians were living in New Zealand, making them the third-larg-est overseas-born group here.

Changes in Tasman migration had been a major factor in recent migration turnround, the report said. Some powerful political groups had argued for further restrictions on intermigration. Should changes be made to tighten the conditions of movement between the two countries, they would have a significant direct impact on this key area of change. However, any restrictions would be counter to the spirit of moves towards closer economic relations.

Changes in the age rates in the work-force would alter its composition significantly, the report said. The most important aspect was that the ageing of the population as a whole would be reflected in the work-force.

In 1981, 34 per cent of the males in the full-time workforce were aged between 40 and 59 years. This was projected to increase to 48 per cent by 2016. The proportion of women aged between 15 and 29 in the female work-force might drop from the 1981 level of 46 per cent to 32 per cent by 2016. Ageing of the population meant that a large number of experienced workers would be concentrated at particular ages and would have fewer chances to advance their careers, the report said. The members of the work-force were likely to find it harder to move to new places or to new jobs than in the past. The large group born between 1947 and 1963 would be replaced in the workforce at younger ages by the much smaller group born since then, during the next decade.

This implied, the report said, that there might be some imbalance in workforce recruitment unless policies were initiated to ensure that the larger number of entrants to the workforce in the early 1970 s were followed by appropriately trained and experienced workers in subsequent years.