The Government’s target is to have 50,000 fewer people on the Jobseeker benefit by 2030. In May, 112,713 people were receiving this benefit.
Steve Maharey is a former academic, city councillor, Labour MP, Minister of Employment and vice-chancellor. He is now an independent director.
OPINION
The coalition Government has decided to take a hard line on jobseekers. In Opposition, it complained loud and long that employers were crying out forworkers while thousands of people were claiming a benefit.
In government, Welfare that Works was the response. Jobseekers are going to get a job and to make sure that happens, there will be annual renewal of benefit checks, regular check-ins with frontline staff, compulsory attendance at seminars, a traffic-light system to signal cuts to benefits, and, as Minister of Social Development Louise Upston put it, “an end to the free ride”.
The policy is all about harassment and punishment. More colloquially, it is a “good kick in the pants”.
This approach fits nicely with the belief, common to the three parties in Government, that people must take responsibility for their own lives. People are the authors of their failures and their successes.
There is some truth in this approach. Each of us does need to act responsibly. If we are jobseekers, we should look for a job and if we do not, there should be consequences.
But there are problems with this line of thinking.
The reality is that Work and Income is underfunded and an unattractive place to be for both jobseekers and frontline staff.
I know, for example, of one office that is closed to the public most of the time with guards posted at the door. Anyone wanting an appointment must phone or email.
'Work and Income should be funded so it can offer real support to jobseekers.'
Beneficiaries often find themselves in limbo, unable to talk face to face to someone about their often very complex problems. In desperation, they have been working with the staff from the local library who advocate on their behalf.
Compulsory seminars are seldom helpful or motivating because they serve mainly to humiliate those who attend.
The constant harassment has less to do with jobseeking than with drumming into jobseekers that they are the problem.
Cuts to benefits make paying bills impossible. Falling into debt that cannot be repaid soon follows.
In short, none of this contributes much to jobseekers finding work.
What would help is positive support from well-trained, well-paid frontline staff, help with transport, clothing and relocation allowances, significant investment in skills, training, education and work experience and quality childcare.
These kinds of policies would ensure jobseekers feel empowered rather than controlled and punished.
In addition, there needs to be a job that can be applied for. In Northland, for example, 12.1% of those aged 15-24 are unemployed. Job ads this year have fallen by 30% and job losses are rising. No amount of harassment and punishment is going to conjure up a job.
Even when there is a job, it all too often does not pay a living wage, is insecure and offers no future prospects. The mantra that any job is better than no job is something said by people who have good jobs. A bad job leads to poverty, foodbanks and a raft of problems.
There is a better way. While holding jobseekers to account, the Government might like to do the same to itself.
Work and Income should be funded so it can offer real support to jobseekers. Policies aimed at ensuring there are good jobs to seek should be implemented — especially in those areas of the country, such as Northland, that are economically depressed.
If the Government is prepared to shoulder its responsibilities, holding people responsible for seeking a job becomes realistic. If they choose not to look for work, sanctions are a reasonable response.
Would this lead to better outcomes, to use one of the Government’s favourite words? Denmark is one country that suggests the answer is yes. Denmark takes a strict line on the need for jobseekers to be active, but the government has in place policies that make the search for a job a realistic option.
What has been called the “Danish job miracle” is associated with improved economic growth rates, low unemployment (it is now 2.5%, meaning it is frictional not structural) and few people who can be classed as the “working poor”.
No system is perfect, but the shared-responsibility approach taken by the Danish government might tell us that if we are going to kick jobseekers in the pants, we might want to ensure their pants fit well and are of good quality.
