3. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) Link to this
to the Minister for Social Development and Employment
What is the latest advice on the number of people out of work?
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) Link to this
I am advised that for the March quarter 2009 the unemployment rate was 5 percent—115,000 people. Of those, 41,336 were receiving the unemployment benefit in April.
Why is the Minister’s ministry calling urgent management meetings in Auckland this week to examine critical staffing shortages at most branch offices, if, as she stated, Work and Income could “cope” on current staffing levels?
Hon PAULA BENNETT Link to this
As previously said in this House, we are currently recruiting for further front-line staff. That staff will go predominantly to Auckland offices, and I know that in Waitakere they are looking at taking on another eight front-line staff, for whom they are currently recruiting. We expect about 104 new staff by the end of June, I think.
Jo GoodhewHon PAULA BENNETT Link to this
This Government has focused resources on front-line services to get people back into work as quickly as possible, and that is working. As of just the last week, within a month of those people coming through the doors of Work and Income to go on a benefit, 30 percent of them had not gone on a benefit, whether or not they had found work. Work and Income is coping. It does need more front-line staff—there are no two ways about it—but we are certainly focused on that.
Why, then, are the positions of 31 front-line field officers—whose job it is to work one-on-one with clients to ensure that clients are receiving the financial support they are entitled to—being disestablished, after the assurances the Minister has just given the House, and has given in the past, that no cuts are happening and that resources are going to the front line?
Hon PAULA BENNETT Link to this
The chief executive has responsibility for the structure of staffing. He has made those calls, and, certainly, those are calls that I back.
How can the 90-day employment trial legislation be “a great example of partnership working for everyone”, as the Minister has stated, when, last week, a citizens advice bureau in South Auckland advised that it is seeing one person a day who has been hired and then fired under that legislation?
Hon PAULA BENNETT Link to this
If we looked at the facts, I think we would also see many employees who are getting a chance that they were not getting before this legislation was put in place. I am hearing daily that people who were not getting opportunities are now getting them, that employers are now taking on people whom they would not normally have taken on, and that, actually, the legislation is working out there.