CTU and Business Agree on Skills Lack but Not on Remedies

"There is a deep irony in yesterday's Business New Zealand's survey through which businesses in this country registered their concern about the lack of skilled workers," said CTU secretary, Carol Beaumont.

"Of course it is a concern that the CTU shares - but we know that with its other priorities Business NZ would take us right back to the 1990s when the rot started."

"We were brought to a skills crisis in the time of the Employment Contracts Act when, with cheap labour and high unemployment, business failed to invest in worker training or modernisation of their capital assets."

"The country cannot afford to go back to another Employment Contracts Act."

"We are at the bottom of the OECD heap as far as pay is concerned. Low pay in the face of rising profits and rising director's fees is a sure sign that business still does not value workers. This is why our brightest and best are still heading out of the country."