The NZCTU supports a macroeconomic policy approach that places the wellbeing of New Zealanders at its centre. To do this, we need to make full employment – defined as a situation in which every person in New Zealand who is willing and able to work can obtain legal employment – a central objective of macroeconomic policy.
A fully employed society has been a long-standing goal of progressive economic policy and is a foundation of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Sustainable Development Goals.
By contrast, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s current approach is to use unemployment as an inflation-control tool. This means that tens-of-thousands of New Zealanders are forced into involuntary unemployment. This is morally indefensible and economically wasteful.
The NZCTU’s submission outlines how the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Remit could be improved to deliver a more sophisticated and socially sustainable approach to managing inflation.