Number unemployed down slightly

Press, 21 November 1987, Page 3

Number unemployed down slightly

Political reporter The number of unemployed totalled 63,300 in the September quarter, according to the household labour force statistics released yesterday. This represented an over-all unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent, a slight decrease on the 4.1 per cent recorded for the June quarter. The survey, which uses different criteria from the Labour Department figures for registered unemployed, found that there were 39,900 males and 26,400 females unemployed on average in the September quarter. The rate in greater Auckland was 2.7 per cent, compared to 3.1 per cent in Wellington, 3.6 per cent in Christchurch, and the national average of 5

per cent. In the September quarter a year ago, there was an average of 60,200 unemployed people — 31,200 males and 29,100 females. To be counted as unemployed in the survey, a person must be jobless, actively seeking work and available to start work. These were the conditions of the International Labour Organisation and used by most Western countries to define unemployment. An additional 50,300 people were jobless but did not meet all these conditions. Of these, 39,500 were available for work but were not actively seeking a job. The remainder were actively seeking work but were unable to start immedi-

ately. The conditions do not class those just looking at job advertisements as “actively seeking work.” Some 5400 fell in to this category. The survey also showed that the average number of people in the labour force in the September quarter was 1,606,800 compared with 1,616,600 in the June quarter. In the last year the number employed in the wholesale and retail trade has risen from 297,100 to 311,900; and those employed in community, social and personal services rose from 395,200 to 406,700. But there was a decrease of 13,300 in the number employed in manufacturing.