Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Craig Rennie: Council of Trade Unions Economist on the record number of beneficiaries

Transcript

Craig Rennie: Council of Trade Unions Economist on the record number of beneficiaries · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The number of people on a benefit has risen to
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  Speaker 1: a new record for the June quarter. That's three hundred
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and eighty one thousand people, an increase of twenty nine
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  Speaker 1: thousand from the same time last year. And get this,
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  Speaker 1: this is the job seeker numbers, those are ready for work,
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and thirteen thousand people, up nearly fifteen percent
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  Speaker 1: year on year. The number of benefit sanctions issued by
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  Speaker 1: the Ministry of Social Development is also up fifty percent
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  Speaker 1: on the same time last year. Craig Rennie is an
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  Speaker 1: economist and policy director for the Council of Trade Unions.
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  Speaker 1: He's with me this morning. Craig, good morning to you.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning.
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  Speaker 1: First of all, what's your reaction to the numbers. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it's going to keep going up the number of people
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  Speaker 1: on the jobs you could benefit, right, because of the
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  Speaker 1: state of the economy.
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  Speaker 2: You're absolutely right, And the number of people on the
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  Speaker 2: toplic of benefit is going to keep rising. The Treasury
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  Speaker 2: forecasts that the number of people who were reemployed will
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  Speaker 2: rise by about forty seven thousand since since the Discoverment
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  Speaker 2: has taken office, just because of the changing economic background,
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  Speaker 2: but also we had record law unemployment until very recently
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  Speaker 2: and so it's heading back into more normal territory.
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  Speaker 1: So is this a necessarily a bad thing? We kind
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  Speaker 1: of need We kind of need this, don't we in
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  Speaker 1: some ways to rebalance the economy and get the interest
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  Speaker 1: rates down.
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  Speaker 2: Unemployment is always a bad thing. The more people who
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  Speaker 2: are in work, there are more households with more money
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  Speaker 2: in their pockets, poverty falls, people are better off. Unemployment
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  Speaker 2: is never a thing that you're trying to aim. It's
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  Speaker 2: always something you should be trying to avoid. And the
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  Speaker 2: best evidence of New Zealand is that the impact of
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  Speaker 2: unemployment is felt far more than the impact of the
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  Speaker 2: cost of living on households.
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  Speaker 1: I guess if you're the government, you're looking at you know,
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  Speaker 1: let's take for example, the public service cuts. You're better off,
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  Speaker 1: aren't you having people in jobs that don't produce outcomes.
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  Speaker 1: You're better off having them on a benefit. You know,
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  Speaker 1: what's the point in having somebody in a job if
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  Speaker 1: there's no good outcome in terms of public service delivery
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  Speaker 1: just for the sake of it.
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  Speaker 2: That may be too, but we don't have any evidence
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  Speaker 2: that those workers who are sitting there just being fu
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  Speaker 2: weren't actually delivering anything. We have quite the opposite. We
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  Speaker 2: have lots of evidence that those who are losing their
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  Speaker 2: jobs were doing front lane, often frontline work in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 2: and there are actually many of the people we need
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  Speaker 2: to have in the country. We're losing skills rapidly to overseas,
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  Speaker 2: precisely because we're cutting jobs in some of these areas,
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  Speaker 2: and we're going to make it much more difficult to
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  Speaker 2: deliver the caames to public services we want to see
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  Speaker 2: in New Zealand if we lose many of these people.
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  Speaker 2: So there's no evidence to support the allegation, at least
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  Speaker 2: that these people aren't doing anything a aren't contributing anything
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  Speaker 2: to New Zealand.
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  Speaker 1: Craig. The sanctions on particularly those under twenty five, A
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  Speaker 1: lot of who are about this yesterday, people saying it's terrible,
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  Speaker 1: you know, particularly for the under twenty fives. Isn't it
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  Speaker 1: important that they have clear expectations and consequences if they
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  Speaker 1: don't meet them.
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  Speaker 2: It's very important that there's clear expectations and that those
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  Speaker 2: expectations work both ways. That people are very clear as
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  Speaker 2: to what they should be able to access, how they
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  Speaker 2: should be able to get support. But there's also there's
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  Speaker 2: also very clear that they use, that there are rules
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  Speaker 2: that people have to abide by, but when we look
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  Speaker 2: at the data, there does seem to have been a
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  Speaker 2: really big shift in the number of assumptions that have
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  Speaker 2: been delivered, particularly in this last quarter, and ext questions
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  Speaker 2: of what's different now with what was happening just three
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  Speaker 2: months ago.
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  Speaker 1: Craig, thanks very much for your time. That's Craig Rinney
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  Speaker 1: who's with the Council of Trade. Union's just gone for
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: more from news talks.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: They'd be listen live on air or online and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Keep our shows with you wherever you go with our
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.