By Duncan Garner
Official unemployment is down but even the neutral experts say job growth is slow and many of the jobs are part-time.
One set of crucial statistics shows young people doing nothing and the numbers keep getting worse. The Labour Party says it is a ticking time bomb.
Nineteen-year-old student Lauren Petersen-Hodge has tried for months to get a full time job but the only ones on offer are part-time flipping burgers.
“On offer were jobs like MacDonalds and Burger King.”
She says her friends are struggling too.
“Of all my friends at university none of them have jobs. They just go through Work and Income."
Official statistics for the last quarter show unemployment dropping slightly to 6.3 percent, down 0.3 percent.
However, 150,000 Kiwis still remain unemployed. Just 3000 more people were in work over the last quarter.
Education Minister Steven Joyce says overall the trend is positive “but there's more work to do”.
That is the good bit, which masks the bad bit as Ms Petersen-Hodge and her friends have found out.
Last quarter there were 13,000 fewer full time jobs but 15,000 more part time jobs, which means fewer hours are being worked overall.
Labour Party MP Jacinda Ardern says people want more work than they can currently find.
Then there are the young people, aged 15-24, who are not in any form of work training or education. 83,000 are sitting on their hands, which is up 4,000 from the 79,000 last quarter.
Ms Ardern says that 83,000 is a ticking time bomb that will flow through to our benefit statistics if we do not turn it around.
Ms Petersen-Hodge does not want to be in that group and has now enrolled in a new career.
“I've decided to go into the army. They pay for university and there are some hot guys,” she says.
There are some real warnings in these statistics; job growth is just 0.1 percent.
Many of those part-time jobs created were for the election and the Rugby World Cup and mask an economy which, on these numbers, show employment growth is close to stagnant.
Worryingly, the numbers of young people doing nothing is increasing and for the government this is a crisis, on their watch.
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