12. JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) Link to this
to the Prime Minister
Does he stand by his statement that “Our strategy for job creation is to build the economic conditions that will give businesses the confidence they need to hire new workers”?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) Link to this
Does he believe that his Government is doing everything it can to create and keep Kiwi jobs when last month 40 workers at Hillside railway workshops were told they were being laid off because KiwiRail chose a Chinese bidder for a significant contract?
We are certainly endeavouring to do everything we can. To put that particular business in perspective, in the average 3-month period something like 120,000 jobs disappear and about 130,000 jobs appear, so there is a very high turnover in the New Zealand labour market. We want to make sure, in particular, that people enter the labour market with good skills out of the education system, and that businesses can see that it will be profitable for them to employ more people in New Zealand. The good news is that confidence is rising and employment is rising.
Is he confident his Budget’s job creation policies are working, given that since 19 May over 1,000 New Zealand workers have been made redundant and a record 3,300 Kiwis have left for Australia and better opportunities?
We do have confidence in the measures laid out in the Budget. The Budget forecasts, for the next 4 years, 170,000 new jobs, which will be a return to the rate of job creation that this economy enjoyed from 1990 to 2005, when about 35,000 new jobs, on average, were created every year.
What role did economic conditions play in the loss of 304 jobs at Ovation New Zealand’s boning facility in Waipukurau, and are these the same economic conditions that he believes will create 170,000 jobs?
Regardless of the economic cycle, industries go through change. The sheep industry has gone through a fairly significant contraction, and around that industry we would expect that because of reduced lamb numbers there will be reduced processing capacity. Our challenge is to make sure that for those skilled workers there are good opportunities, in growing industries, for them to pick up jobs where they can get good pay and a prospect that their incomes will increase. So we are focusing on helping to create the new jobs.