Survey highlights jobless woes

Press, 21 May 1988, Page 1

Survey highlights jobless woes

By

PETER LUKE,

political reporter.

Unemployment rose 20 per cent in the first three months of this year. The Quarterly Household Survey, released yesterday, for the March, 1988, quarter adds to the Government’s employment woes. It showed that the number of unemployed had risen 20 per cent since the December, 1987, quarter — from 67,000 to 80,600. An extra 50,300 people were without work but did not meet the survey’s tight criteria for “unemployed” status. They

lift the total jobless figure to 130,900. The survey contained three other pieces of bad news for the Government. © Unemployed rates in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch rose significantly. © Employment levels fell 35,900 between the December, 1987, and March 1988, quarters. ® Significant employment declines occurred in the last year in agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing, manufacturing and building and construction.

The survey, by the Statistics Department, is a more rigorous and Internationally comparable measure of unemployment than the Labour Department’s register. The 50,300 “jobless” but not “unemployed” in the survey were those not actively seeking a , job — they might only be looking at newspaper job advertisements. The survey always showed a lower unemployment figure than the register. In the first three months of this year, those registered varied between 100,569 and 101,770, and represented about 7.5 per cent of the work

force (excluding vacation workers). By contrast the survey’s 80,600 unemployed gave an unemployment fate of 5 per cent — compared to 4.1 per cent in the December, 1987, quarter and also a year ago. Both sets of figures agreed, however, that a sharp rise in unemployment occurred since October last year, when 88,017 were • registered as unemployed. The March survey showed that the three main metropolitan areas all had significant increases in unemployment. The March survey showed that

the three main metropolitan areas all had significant increases in unemployment. In Christchurch, the rate rose from 3.5 per cent to 4.6 per cent in the last year; Wellington, from 3.1 per cent to 4.2 per cent; and in Auckland, from 2.9 per cent to 3.5 per cent. The three centres still had a lower rate than the rest of the country, whose rate rose from 5.2 per cent to 6.2 per cent in the last year. The number of people in employment dropped 35,900 to 1,564,400 between the December and March .quarters.