Dole queue twice as long as 2008

One in every nine working-age New Zealanders is now on a benefit as the recession finally bites into employment.

Ministry of Social Development figures show that the numbers on unemployment benefit alone have doubled in the past year from 0.7 per cent to 1.4 per cent of all those aged 18 to 64.

Sickness, invalid and domestic purposes beneficiaries all increased too, so the total of all beneficiaries rose from 9.8 per cent of the working-age group in March last year to 10.9 per cent this March - just a fraction below a ninth of the age group.

Tangata whenua are again bearing the heaviest burden of the recession with more than a quarter of all working-age Maori now on benefits.

The benefit numbers come as Statistics NZ data released yesterday showed a 1.9 per cent drop in hours worked in the year to March, the biggest fall in 17 years. Official unemployment figures are due on Thursday.

Council of Trade Unions economist Peter Conway said there was "worse still to come".

"That is why we are calling for the Government to make this a jobs Budget and focus in on what can be done, like the home insulation jobs, the Taskforce Green, other support for industry and greater support for workers being laid off."

The figures are still nowhere near as bad as the bottom of the last major recession in the early 1990s, but the downturn has been sudden and savage after more than a decade of steady improvement.

"The context is that in December 1999 there were just under 162,000 on the unemployment benefit," Mr Conway said. "So obviously the main concern about the increase from 18,000 to 37,000 in the past year is its rapidity and the fact that it's heading higher."

Sickness and invalid benefit numbers have been rising throughout the period due, partly, to the ageing population.

But domestic purposes benefit (DPB) numbers had been declining from a peak of 109,000 in 2003 to below 96,000 last year, partly because of the more generous tax incentive for parents to work under the Labour Government's Working for Families package. DPB numbers have reversed back up again in the past year to 102,000.

Maori accounted for 43 per cent of the rise in DPB numbers - far more than their 30 per cent share of all births last year. Twelve per cent of all working-age Maori, or roughly a quarter of working-age Maori women, are now on the DPB.

Overall, 25.9 per cent of working-age Maori are now on some kind of benefit, compared with 14 per cent of Pacific people and 8.2 per cent of others. In contrast to previous recessions, there is little difference across the age groups in the numbers on some kind of benefit.