Record low unemployment – time to move on wages

"With the labour market this tight, wages should be much higher than they are at present,” CTU secretary Carol Beaumont said today.

Statistics New Zealand’s quarterly Household Labour Force Participation survey out this morning showed the highest number of people in work and the lowest unemployment since the survey began.

“This is a considerable achievement, and confirms that the Government’s active labour market approach is working.  But it does mean employers need to bite the bullet on wages.”

“If we are to make any headway in closing the 30% wage gap with Australia we need more widespread collective bargaining on an industry basis, and continued efforts in skill development, lifting productivity and improving the quality of work.”

“The ethnic disparities in unemployment figures remain and we must not lose sight of this.  We are pleased to see the figures heading in the right direction, but 7.0 percent of Maori and 7.8 percent of Pacific people are still out of work”

“There are also sectors where serious issues remain with the security of jobs, in particular manufacturing, and the Manufacturing Advisory Group announced on Tuesday will help give the sector the urgent attention it needs.”

“With persistent skills and labour shortages, attention must turn to ways we can better organise work, and the bill before Parliament to give workers a legislative right to request flexible working hours is one of a number of possible improvements in this area.”