Job trends for the 1990s

Press, 13 December 1989, Page 14

Job trends for the 1990s

PA Wellington Employment trends predicted for the 1990 s augur well for women but not Maoris and youths, according to a Planning Council report issued today. The council’s director, Mr Peter Rankin, said the report, “Work Today: Employment Trends to 1999,” provided information for judging progress in achieving sustainable, high-income, full employment in the next decade. The report details the present state of employment and unemployment and how age, ethnicity, gender and education affect participation in the workforce. It outlines expected trends in those areas in the next decade.

The report’s author, Lesley Haines, said the next decade would see a diverse workforce with a continuing growth in parttime jobs, small businesses, selfemployment and more highly skilled workers. “There will be more turbulence in the labour market with people moving between full and part-time hours, in and out of selfemployment, in and out of the paid labour force and in and out of education training.” The growing service sector would provide most new jobs, particularly wholesale and retail trade, business and personal services.

Many jobs would come directly from increased demands for services such as tourism, education and recreation, the report said. Part-time employment would keep growing as women combined paid work and unpaid work in the home, younger people worked to fund their education and the num-

ber of service jobs grew. The state of the economy meant employers were also more likely to employ part-timers but the council’s research showed only a small number of part-timers wanted full-time work.

The proportion of women in paid work would continue to increase, particularly women with dependent children. “Though gender differences in employment patterns are slowly eroding, women’s employment is heavily concentrated in service sectors and occupations. Women are thus well placed to benefit from the expected growth of jobs in several of the service sectors and occupations,” the report said. Employment prospects for Maori were less promising. “In education, skills, hours worked, incomes and occupations, Maori at the moment are not well positioned to take advantage of expected trends and changes,” the report said. More Maoris were finding jobs in the service sector but most, particularly men, were heavily concentrated in manual work in the primary and manufacturing industries.

“Most of the expected employment increase will be non-manual work in the service sector — the low concentration of Maori workers in this category does not look good for future Maori employment,” the report said. Maori unemployment rates were about four times higher than those of non-Maori because of the young population, lack of educational qualifications and low presence at employer level. “Maori people have shouldered

far more than their fair share of the burden of unemployment.” Strategies which reduced the vulnerability of Maoris to unemployment should have high priority, it said. Age and education could also explain the low wages Maoris earned compared with nonMaoris. The return of assets to iwi under the Treaty of Waitangi could generate jobs for Maoris through more Maori ownership and investment.

The extension of equal-employment-opportunities policies to the private sector would also help Maoris get jobs. In 1986, Maori workers made up 9.5 per cent of the total labour force. This was likely to increase to about 12 per cent by 1996, the report said.

It said 46 per cent of the present workforce had no formal school qualifications and 60 per cent had no tertiary qualifications. “We will only achieve sustainable full employment and high incomes if we shift the emphasis further away from the mass production of commodities towards quality specialist products with greater value and profit.” Young people would have to stay in education institutions longer and gain more qualifications to meet employers’ demands for higher skills, the report said.

Workers would need to constantly update their range of skills to cope with changes in technology.

The unemployment level was likely to remain about 7 per cent till 1992 then drop to 4.5 per cent in the late 19905.