Editorial: A challenge we know we can meet

You have become well accustomed to words "jobs challenge" in the Herald over the past two months. At times the dimensions of the challenge may have been as difficult to face in print as they are in fact. The series could not be about job creation in isolation from all other influences on the economy. Jobs are the driving force of an economy and its most valuable fruit. But jobs are what an economy means to individuals and households.

Just as the living standards of individuals and households depend on the kind of jobs they have, the wealth of the nation depends on the kind of work we do. Today's jobs challenge is not a matter simply of creating jobs. Former socialist economies created jobs for everyone, often by organising farms, factories and shops so that three or four people could do the work of one. Those societies have largely disappeared because their living standards made their citizens envious of places where more efficient markets prevailed.

New Zealand has been one of the wealthiest countries of the world, with full employment. The loss of a guaranteed British market for our limited range of exports put an end to that era a generation ago. We have maintained a first-class living standard, albeit now near the bottom of that category. We cannot afford to fall much further. The jobs challenge is about gearing up our skills, initiative and resources to ensure we are not left to look sullenly at countries whose products we cannot afford and which we can no longer visit.

The first challenge is one of confidence. On that score, our series was an immediate success. No sooner had we challenged the prevailing pessimism two months ago than the mail began to tell us we had tapped a reservoir of frustrated national spirit. We ought to have known that the quiet, can-do qualities of New Zealanders were likely to resurface.

Since then more than 200 letters and e-mail messages have brought ideas and observations. Not all of them have been practical or in tune with an economy geared to be competitive in the First World, but all have a kernel of value that should not be discarded.

Inevitably, a collective conversation such as this invites collective solutions. The powers and resources of the Government figure large in many proposals, not often with any doubts about the ability of public agencies to make fine investment decisions. But then somebody has to make those decisions. If our private sector dares not make them, do we put much more money in the hands of public bodies or do we try to improve the entrepreneurial capacity of individuals, firms and communities?

"Capacity-building" has become the buzzword of Governments lately. It requires better education, information, research resources, risk capital and marketing networks, all with the rewards for success that preclude high taxation. It is a difficult balance but not impossible if the state concentrates its resources where they will fertilise the widest possible range of opportunities.

Much depends on a positive attitude to work, enterprise and its rewards - and that should start in schools and universities. Too much of our education is geared to producing employees rather than entrepreneurs, and possibly the difficulties of finding employment have been emphasised too heavily in the classroom. Competition for jobs is keen these days, but a confident attitude is a good start.

The present Government enjoys the confidence of the education sector. It could do a great deal to inspire a more positive attitude to business, competition and profit from our halls of higher learning, all for the collective good. The jobs challenge series may have finished but the challenge does not.

Now we know we can rise to it.