Jobs a worry - despite the statistics

Gisborne teen Darryl Shasky left school last year but has only just found a job. Picture / Alan Gibson

Please!!! I want a job! I need a job!" Those were the opening lines of a $5 advertisement placed in the Gisborne Herald on July 27 by 18-year-old Darryl Shasky, who left school at the end of last year but could not get fulltime work.

"My biggest problem is that I do not have any work experience but I will never have until someone is willing to give me my first start. I have computer skills, a great personality, a willingness to learn and, given the opportunity, I will prove to be a valuable employee."

According to official statistics, New Zealand boasts the lowest unemployment in the world.

Even Gisborne, long a black spot for unemployment, is booming. New six-storey Parnell-style apartment blocks and hotels are sprouting incongruously on the riverside site of what used to be the Wattie's factory. First Light Construction, which is building them, has more than $30 million in local forward orders.

On the Emerald Hotel site in Gladstone Rd, father-of-two Kris Te Pania, who joined First Light as an unskilled labourer five years ago, finally started a carpentry apprenticeship four months ago.

He has not had to drop to an apprentice's wages. "Because I'd been with the job for a long time, I was allowed to keep my pay rate."

Yet, in more than seven months since school, Darryl Shasky applied for jobs at stores like Farmers, supermarkets, petrol stations, bars, restaurants and "every job that has suited that has come up in the paper". Everywhere, she was told she needed "work experience".

Her story has a happy ending. After the Gisborne Herald heard the Herald had interviewed her, they ran a story on her plight and she started work yesterday at a Hannahs shoe store working 20 1/2 hours a week.

"I really want fulltime, but it's good for now," she says. "I've also got some casual work at Woolworths."

Evidently, even now, finding fulltime work is not always easy. To test this, as part of our "mood of the nation" survey, we asked everyone if they knew "anyone who is in a position where they could be working but are not in paid work".

After excluding suggestions of people who are temporarily between jobs, caring for children or supported by spouses, 231 (41 per cent) of the 564 people who answered this question know a long-term beneficiary who is actively looking for work or, in their opinion, could work.

Of these, 89 know people like Ms Shasky who want work but have not been able to find it. Seven of these are people like her, who live in regions where there are simply too few jobs: Kaitaia, East Cape, Ruatahuna, Taumarunui, Marton.

Many (33) have disabilities, medical and psychological conditions. Their friends and families believe they could work if offered more help.

"He's not working because of perceived medical reasons but it's a state of mind as well," says Lynley, a Christchurch centre manager. "He should be encouraged to participate in some way, even if only through a weekly workshop to get him in touch with other people."

Another, mainly younger, group (7) simply lack self-confidence. Elise, a North Shore receptionist, tells of teenagers who are "bumming around" aimlessly.

"A lot of teenagers have low self-esteem these days. In the last two years of school, people should be prepared for the workplace and do role-plays for interviews. They are happy to work if someone else says, 'I'm working here or there, why don't you come and work with me?"'

A further 10 people dropped out of school without qualifications and their friends would like to see them helped into training.

Ben, a Manurewa machine operator, suggests school-age youngsters who are not academic should do work experience a few days a week.

"Then they will figure out what they want to do when they leave school, not just say you have got to come to school till you are 17 and then 'see you later'," he says.

On the other hand, another nine people are only studying because they couldn't get work, or have finished courses and found no jobs.

Thirty others have qualifications, but can't get jobs because they are older, new immigrants, had a long break from work rearing children, or had their confidence knocked by a business collapse or other disaster. Their friends say they all could work, with help.

That leaves by far the biggest chunk of the sample - those who could work but don't want to, either because it doesn't pay (26), because they are waiting for "the right job" that suits their qualifications (15), for various other reasons (14), or simply, in their friends' opinion, because they are lazy (87).

"Let's face it, there are jobs out there now, it's not like 10 years ago," says Christchurch shop assistant Wendy Giddens.

Tauranga marketing manager Mark Scrimshaw has mates who worked for 20 years in meatworks but have now been unemployed for three to five years. He feels he understands them a bit better every time he takes a holiday.

"After a few weeks of holiday you are lethargic. It takes two weeks to get back into it," he says.

"After a year of being unemployed, it's very hard to motivate people. We have to force them into jobs they can do and re-educate them."

But it has to pay. Auckland shop assistant Roslyn Schick, 25, knows a woman who gets $385 a week on the domestic purposes benefit, including family support, accommodation supplement and other top-ups.

"I work six days a week in retail and get $400," she says. "Get rid of it, I say. Everyone should be self-sufficient."

Dunedin social worker Donna Tunnicliffe, 49, says the problem is that people lose most of their benefit supplements as soon as they earn more than $80 a week.

"We need to overhaul the system so you are not penalised for working," she says.