The employment crisis and schooling in New Zealand

Abstract

In the last decade in New Zealand the number of people who were either registered as unemployed, or who were on temporary work schemes has increased by 964 per cent, and currently stands well in excess of 100,000 persons. For these people in the 40-45 age group - who incidentally are now our senior and middle management personnel - such a scenario would have been termed preposterous if put to them at the time when they entered the work force in the 1950's. At that time labour was scarce as a relatively low birth rate cohort sought to service the products of the post war baby boom during a period of rapid economic growth. Throughout the 1960's and well into the 1970's New Zealand experienced full, or at least near full, employment. Generally speaking, people who wanted to work found a job. Today, for every unfilled vacancy, in most months there are approximately 25 registered unemployed available to fill it. What, then, went wrong? This paper explains some of the causes of the employment crisis, which are basically in the areas of demography, economics, and changing social and technological patterns. After examining successive government's responses to the crisis we then look specifically at the role of the school system and the youth training programmes begun at technical institutes and elsewhere.