Job grants ‘beefed up’

Press, 10 January 1987, Page 34

Job grants ‘beefed up’

PA Wellington Government grants to help the unemployed look for work in other centres were not designed to drive them into main cities, said the Minister of Social Welfare, Mrs Hercus. The measures were not new and had simply been “beefed up” to help those who chose to move where they could find full-time jobs. The Government recently announced $lOOO job search and $2OOO relocation grants in a package

designed to help people in hard-hit provincial areas explore employment opportunities elsewhere. The Opposition branded the move as paying people to desert the regions. Mrs Hercus said one anomaly in the economy was that there was work available but job-seekers were not always where the jobs were. "People are often prepared to move in order to work but cannot because they are stuck in one place by economic circumstances,” she said.

It was a responsible Government initiative to help people take such opportunities, Mrs Hercus told a regional forum in Timaru.

If regional leaders were concerned they were going to lose their labour force they should explore other options in the package, such as the increased subsidy rates of the job opportunities scheme which was designed to encourage employers to take on more unemployed people, said Mrs Hercus.