Region's dole numbers double in a year

The number of Aucklanders on unemployment benefits has doubled in the past year as the global recession hits cities harder than the provinces.

Work and Income figures given to the Herald on the eve of the first of three Auckland regional "job summits" today show the region's unemployment beneficiaries jumped from 6391 at the end of February last year to 12,879 at the end of last month.

That is 1.4 per cent of the 950,300 people in the region aged 15 to 64 at the last Census, compared with 0.7 per cent a year ago. For comparison, the national tally of 34,781 on the dole at the end of February grew from 0.7 per cent to 1.2 per cent of the working-age population.

ASB economist Nick Tuffley said the city had been hit harder by the housing slump, which saw building permits for new homes in the region drop 30 per cent last year against a drop of only 24 per cent elsewhere.

He told Northland's regional job summit on Friday that provincial areas, and New Zealand generally, might be cushioned from the worst of the global recession because their main products were food rather than manufactured consumer goods.

Conversely, industries making consumer goods such as Fisher & Paykel's whiteware are more exposed.

The benefit figures show that, once again, Maori and Pacific people are worst affected. Auckland's Maori unemployment benefit rate rose 1.5 per cent in the past year to 3.4 per cent, and the rate for Pacific people rose a full percentage point to 2.1 per cent. In contrast, the rate for Asians and others rose only half a percentage point to 1.2 per cent and the European rate rose by only 0.4 percentage points to just 0.7 per cent. Unemployment benefit rates were higher in Manukau (1.8 per cent) and Papakura (3.2 per cent) than in North, West or Central Auckland.

All these rates are much lower than the official unemployment rate of 4.6 per cent at the last count in December because many unemployed do not qualify for the dole, for reasons such as their partners' earnings, being under 18, not being permanent New Zealand residents or simply not looking for a job because of parental or other tasks.

The Ministry of Social Development's Auckland regional commissioner, Isabel Evans, said the number on the dole was still only half the 24,449 people (2.6 per cent of the working-age group) who received it five years ago.

Although vacancies on Work and Income's books in the region have dropped from 1700 a year ago to 700 at the end of last month, she said 35 per cent of those applying for benefits in the region were still finding work before they actually took up a benefit.

Surprisingly, many vacancies were in the same sectors that were laying people off - building, retailing, hospitality, engineering and healthcare.

"While one outfit is downsizing, there are jobs in another outfit in the same industry," she said.

"There is a perception that it would be easier to get jobs in Auckland because we are a big city, so we are seeing that people are coming in from other areas of the country.

"There are also quite a lot of people returning from overseas. They are losing their jobs overseas, particularly Australia, so they are coming back to where their families are and seeing if they can get jobs here."

Ms Evans, who was born in Fiji and came here aged 15, said she felt sad about the numbers of Pacific people returning to the dole queue after a spectacular reduction in the region's Pacific dole numbers from 3.6 per cent in 2004 to 1.1 per cent in 2008, aided by Work and Income's region-wide "Pacific Wave" programme.

Pacific Wave work brokers have now been redirected into a beefed-up team liaising with employers to make sure Work and Income lists as many job vacancies as possible.

Just over 100 employers are expected at Takapuna's Bruce Mason Centre today for the first of the region's three "summits" following up on the national job summit in Manukau last month. The other two will be at the Waipuna Hotel in Mt Wellington on Friday and at Waitakere's Trusts Stadium next Monday.

* >www.beehive.govt.nz/feature/summit