KEY POINTS:
Twenty-something with a university degree and work experience on your CV? The world is your oyster.
But what about school leavers and older workers, the newly redundant, mums returning to the workforce, and the disabled? How equal is the employment market for them?
Finding a job has become easier, thanks to New Zealand's skills shortage but it's still nowhere near a level playing field.
Dr Judy McGregor, EEO Commissioner with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, says her job "isn't as hard when there is a tight labour market".
The high market participation (by women at a record 62.2 per cent and men at 75.7) has forced employers into a talent war. "They have to be good to attract and retain good employees. We have seen a quantum shift in the last 10 years with employers being more flexible around work practices.
"That has been driven by employees saying, 'I want it, I can get it elsewhere if you don't give it to me'; and by government discussion and debate, and the union movement," she says.
Positive developments are more flexibility for working hours and paid parental leave for employed and self-employed women.
"We are seeing a slight breakdown in traditional roles. So we have fewer men aged 20, 30 and 40 working very long hours." But McGregor says New Zealanders still work overtime.
"Twenty-three per cent of new Zealanders work longer than 50 hours."
New Zealand still has a low-wage economy and pay equity issues. The minimum wage is $11.25. McGregor says our median income is around $24,400, "which is not a hell of a high".
Other areas needing attention are the barriers for disadvantaged groups. "Disabled people are two to three times less likely to be in the workforce. Even though more older people are working, I think mature men, particularly professionals made redundant, find it hard to get back into the labour market at the level they were before.
"Refugees and migrants still find it hard to access work that makes use of their qualifications. So for those groups, plus women returning to work, there are still issues around whether the break in their career means they have to accept something lesser to get back in."
"New Zealand is turning into a nation of wage slaves," says Lyndal Yaqub, who specialises in employment law at DLA Phillips Fox. But the good news is that the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Amendment Bill will help to address this issue as "it is a landmark legislation giving workers the right to ask for changes and flexibility in their working hours".
Like Dr McGregor, Yaqub lists discrimination of disabled workers, the gender disparity in employment and age discrimination as areas of concern. Women continue to lag behind on pay scales.
"Equal pay for work of equal value is a fundamental human right. But in New Zealand we have a workforce of two halves in terms of pay packets.
"June 2006 figures show women earn only 84 per cent on average compared with men. The gender pay gap has closed by less than 10 per cent in the past 20 years. If this slow progress continues, it will be another 40 years before we achieve pay equity between men and women."
However, positive initiatives in this area include "the Government's commitment to a five-year plan to improve the gender pay gap in health, education and the public service, and it has established the Pay and Employment Equity Unit to drive change", according to Yaqub.
Chief executive of the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust, Dr Philippa Reed, thinks the skills shortage has brought about more diversity - culturally, ethnically and across age groups.
But there is still work to be done.
"I was just looking at something from Australia where an organisation called Diversity at Work is running a seminar looking at age diversity and they were calling it Old Farts and Upstarts," says Dr Reed. "People at both ends of the age spectrum in the workforce find it more difficult to find new roles.
"Now and then I scan newspaper employment ads and [there have been a] number of times you will see someone recruiting for someone with a degree and four years' work experience.
"The role is being pitched to someone in their late 20s as an ideal candidate and there just aren't enough of them to go around.
"It can be a fallacy to have that mindset around the ideal employee. There are still a lot of people in New Zealand who have good qualifications and a robust amount of work experience but it isn't New Zealand work experience and they find it difficult to get into their chosen field."
She says there are benefits to employers willing to step outside the square.
"People who have found it challenging to find a role are very grateful to their employers who give them a chance.
"It's about achieving a greater openness and opportunities, and not always seeing difference as a barrier."
