Jobless down but more taking sickness benefit

While the number of people on an unemployment benefit is low, numbers on sickness and invalids' benefits have increased.

The Government released Work and Income figures yesterday that show unemployment benefit numbers have dropped to under 40,000 for the first time since 1982.

The department's quarterly figures show that on June 30, 39,572 people were registered as unemployed.

Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope said the figure, down from 161,000 when Labour took office, was a drop of 75 per cent.

National Party leader Dr Don Brash said he was delighted the recent economic climate had helped reduce unemployment, "but it is the business community in New Zealand that creates jobs, not the Government".

Dr Brash said while the number of people classified as unemployed might be low, there were around 122,000 people on sickness and invalids' benefits. This figure was up 50 per cent since 1999.

The Government's attempts to rehabilitate these people into work had been "feeble", Dr Brash said.

He released answers from Mr Benson-Pope in March to parliamentary questions about the Paths (Providing Access to Health Solutions) initiative.

This programme, which Mr Benson-Pope said was the first of its kind in the world, was aimed at helping sickness and invalid beneficiaries into the workforce by removing, reducing or managing the health problems that were preventing them from working.

Dr Brash said 56 participants in Paths had declared income since entering the programme and 68 had moved off benefit.

He said National would work with doctors to ensure a consistent approach was taken to sickness and invalids benefit criteria.

Mr Benson-Pope said the increase in the number of sickness and invalids beneficiaries did not show people were simply moving off the unemployment benefit on to other benefits.

Overall since 1999 the combined number of people receiving unemployment, sickness, invalid and domestic purposes benefits (DPB) had fallen from 372,000 to 280,000.

Mr Benson-Pope said the rise in sickness and invalid beneficiary numbers appeared to be levelling off with growth of just 2.7 per cent in 2005.

Unemployment had dropped 22 per cent in the past year and the number of people receiving the DPB had dropped by 5 per cent.

He said the figures were a milestone for the Government.

"Since the Government took office in 1999, we've supported people to take charge of their lives and take up opportunities. We've proved that supportive, not punitive, policies are the right way to go."

In recent days Mr Benson-Pope has called for officials to identify "clusters" of long-term beneficiaries for extra attention, but denied the approach was punitive.

He has also ruled out taking greater control of some beneficiaries' finances.

That followed a call from National Maori Urban Authority head and former Labour MP John Tamihere that Maori welfare organisations should be given the power to manage the finances of beneficiaries with a poor track record.

National welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins has also floated the idea of welfare smart cards for beneficiaries with substance abuse problems, or where there were concerns they were not looking after children properly.

Under the scheme, part of someone's benefit would be put on to the card which could be used to purchase selected items at supermarkets.

Ms Collins has stressed that National is investigating the idea and it was not yet party policy.

- NZPA