27 May 2005
A report prepared for the ILO on Palestinian unemployment says the high rate of "forced
idleness makes a fertile breeding ground for extremism and violence." Forced idleness — that is, neither being
in work nor in school — is over 30% for 15 to 24-year-olds and over 50% for those aged 25 to 29
years in Palestine. The ILO recommends significant assistance be given to vocational training,
business development and employment orientation for young Palestinian people.
The ageing workforce will soon threaten the ability of NZ ports to work to their potential. 70%
of experienced port workers will reach retirement age in the next 15 years and many port pilots will
retire within five to 10 years and there are few younger people entering the industry to fill their places. Port
of Tauranga chief executive Jon Mayson says port executives throughout the country are
considering getting behind the sponsorship of cadets. Mayson says that without training schemes, there's going to
be a significant shortage of port workers with seafaring experience.
The EU agrees to a dramatic increase in aid to the developing world. By 2010, EU country's
combined aid will double what it is today.
29 May 2005
France votes to reject the European Union constitution. An opinion poll by TNS-Sofres found
almost half of those who voted "no" did so because they were worried about unemployment, which has
recently reached 10.2% in France.
30 May 2005
The St Vincent de Paul Society refutes the Australian government's claim that low-income
households have enjoyed strong income growth during its tenure. Using Australian Bureau of Statistics data,
St Vincent de Paul found that 4.5 million Australian households earn less than $400 per week. John
Wicks of the society says personal income increases have favoured those on high — not low — incomes.
He also points out the tax cuts and welfare reforms in the recent Budget hold a huge bias towards those
on higher incomes and are likely to increase the gap between the rich and the poor. Wicks says the
Budget changes will see the poorest Australians lose about $280 per year while those on $100,000 a year
will gain $3,252.
31 May 2005
The Ministry of Social Development is working on the details of the policies that will shape the
new Single Core Benefit and is calling for feedback on the proposed changes. You can give your feedback at
www.workandincome.govt.nz/
The 2005 Hays Salary Survey finds NZ salary increases have been "restrained" over the past
12 months considering the prevalence of skills shortages.
In Australia, some of the 74 new mining projects underway or in the planning stage could be
threatened by a shortage of skilled labour. Key areas of skill shortages are in heavy diesel mechanics,
fitters, welders and electrical trades.
Even though there has been skill shortages in Australian mines, there hasn't been a blowout in pay.
The Hays salary survey found most workers got a modest 3-6% pay raise last year.
At the opening of the Africa Economic Summit
2005, leaders call for closer involvement of
business to step up aid and investment in Africa.
A study presented to the Africa Economic Summit
finds that HIV/AIDS is having a significant
impact on African economies. More than half of African businesses are affected through decreased
productivity and absenteeism. Shrinking labour pools, increased costs and decreased productivity due to
HIV/AIDS could significantly impact the competitiveness of African business.
1 June 2005
"Empty nesters" and childless couples in NZ are becoming more common than traditional families
of "mum dad and the kids". By next year, the number of couples living alone without kids will be
greater than those with kids. The increase in the number of childless couples and single-person households
is primarily due to the ageing population and dropping fertility.
2 June 2005
Joblessness in the European Union is 8.9%, with 13 million people without work.
3 June 2005
The increasing number of approvals for foreign fishing crew to work on New Zealand-owned boats
is due to a shortage of local labour, according the Department of Labour. 174 working permits are
either active or being processed, about twice the number approved last year. Thousands of other foreign
crew are employed on foreign-owned boats under charter to NZ companies and working with NZ
territorial waters.
NZ, Chile, Singapore and Brunei trade ministers settle on the wording of a trade liberalisation
agreement. NZ Minister of Trade Negotiations Jim Sutton says the agreement provides for
comprehensive tariff elimination among all four countries by 2017. Tariffs will be eliminated on 90% of New
Zealand's current exports to Chile and 92% of exports to Brunei once the agreement comes into force,
possibly as early as January 2006.
As many as 9,000 Kenyan civil servants are facing dismissal after the government says they
participated in an illegal two-day strike. The government says the dismissals are not part of its promise to cut
Kenya's civil service workforce by 21,000. In Kenya, wages and pensions paid to civil servants
consume 44% of government revenue.
5 June 2005
New Zealand Herald business columnist Rod Oram points out that business negativity over the last
five is at odds with the reality of high economic growth. Oram says the two last "gloomy" periods were
in mid-2000 when optimism dropped as Labour was first elected and yet the economy went on to
grow 5.2%. Optimism was again low in early-2003 but the economy grew by 4.6%. Oram points out
the OECD is forecasting the NZ economy to grow 2.9% this year and 2.4% next year — still well into
the top half of the OECD.
The US economy added just 78,000 jobs in May, the weakest job growth since August 2003 and
well below the number of people entering the labour market.
6 June 2005
Australasian mining and chemical corporate Orica consolidates what were its seven call centres
in Australia and New Zealand to one centre, in Lower Hutt. 30 staff are being added.
7 June 2005
By itself, the fall in the number of new migrants coming to New Zealand could push unemployment
up by as much as 0.5% over the next two years. International Monetary Fund research indicates a
higher rate of inward immigration corresponds with a lowering of the unemployment rate. Inward
immigration to New Zealand has been dropping and is expected to continue to drop over the coming years.
The government is undermining prisoner employment rehabilitation while "throwing its money" at
the more expensive prisoner "reintegration" services, according to the United Future Party.
Spokesperson Marc Alexander says inmate employment rehabilitation is the best means of stopping prisoners
from reoffending — but spending on these initiatives will drop this year. Marc believes inmate
employment initiatives are losing out to what he believes are less effective reintegration schemes. He says the
Minister of Corrections Paul Swain has received a five-year audit of one reintegration scheme and admitted
it was "not good" but has refused to release the report.
The Australian minimum wages rises to $A12.30/hr, effectively a $17/wk rise for full-time workers
on the minimum rate.
8 June 2005
United States President George W Bush welcomes British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the
White House. Bush says the US will provide $674 million of additional resources to respond to
humanitarian emergencies in Africa.
Tony Blair says it is important to commit the resources to Africa that are necessary … but it's not
just about resources. Blair: "It's also about debt; it's about trade; it's about making sure that we deal
with these diseases — HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, polio — that are killing so many people. It's about
conflict resolution and having the proper peacekeeping and peace enforcement mechanisms."
General Motors Corp will slash its workforce by 25,000 as it closes more assembly and
component plants in the next few years.
9 June 2005
Workforce shortages are behind the Taranaki District Health Board's $2.5 million workforce
development strategy which will be rolled out over five years in an effort to attract and retain skilled
health workers. The strategy includes improved scholarship programmes, representation at overseas
expos, closer links to medical schools, developing a health website, professional development, and work
with local and national networks.
Allied Workforce is looking to be the first NZ labour hire company to float shares on the
sharemarket. The company has about 8,000 blue collar workers on its books with a core of about 2,000 who
are almost exclusively full-time. The company currently has 21 branch offices and managing director
Simon Hull projects the company will have doubled its revenue (to $74.2 million) over three years. Hull
attributes the success of the company to the increasing number of businesses employing casual labour
— up to one third of the NZ workforce is now employed as casual or part-time.
12 June 2005
The G8 Heads of Government state their collective commitment to 100% debt cancellation for 18
of world's poorest countries.
13 June 2005
Sonya Davies, pioneer feminist and labour activist, dies at 82.
There are three million medical workers from poor countries who are now working in
hospitals and nursing homes in virtually every developed country around the world. The health services in most
of these countries would grind to a halt if they were deprived of their foreign born and trained staff.
According to the International Organisation on Migration (IOM), there are more Ghanian doctors
working outside Ghana than in the country itself, more doctors from Benin are working in France than there
are in Benin, and more Ethiopian doctors are working in Washington DC alone than in the whole of
Ethiopia. The situation is similar for nurses: each year the Philippines loses twice as many nurses as it trains.
A number of the districts hosting the British Lions rugby tour of New Zealand are running
campaigns targeting the visiting rugby supporters to consider settling in their areas. Canterbury,
Manawatu, Waikato and Taranaki are among those looking to permanently attract British rugby tourists.
The National Party says the $15 million
Working for Families advertising campaign is
costing about $1,000 for each family it is trying to reach. Finance spokesperson John Key says that 182,280
of the 196,230 families who will receive increases through
Working for Families are automatically enrolled because they are already on benefits. That leaves a small fraction (about 14,000 families)
who would have to apply and are the only ones the government needs to alert to their eligibility.
Western European countries have taken widely different approaches to the influx of
foreign workers since the widening of the European Union. In May 2004, the inclusion of Poland,
Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Lithuanian into the EU
was hailed as the reunification of Europe. But it has also provided challenges to the old EU members.
In many of these countries, such as France and Germany, unemployment is running at over 10% and there is
anxiety about a flood of foreign workers who might undercut local pay rates and accept substandard
working conditions.