Max Whitehead: Employment relations specialist on benefit recipient numbers rising

The Government's target to reduce the number of people on the benefit hasn't gone to plan. 

Recent statistics show a 12% increase in people getting assistance in the past 12 months. 

22,000 more Kiwis are currently receiving financial support from the jobseeker benefit alone. 

Employment relations specialist Max Whitehead joins the show to discuss the numbers. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government's plan to get people off the job Seeker
benefit hasn't been as successful as they would wish. The
statistics show there's been a twelve percent increase in people
getting assistance in the past year. That's twenty two thousand
more kiwis receiving financial support on the job seeker alone.
That's the size of levin. So is this not working?
Why is it not working? And could it work? Max

(00:21):
Whitehead is an employment relation specialist with the white Head
Group and joins me this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good morning to you, Max, Hey, Andrew. Wow, look it's
not good these numbers.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
No, but why are the numbers dropping? I mean, they
put penalties in place, they put more hoops for people
to jump through. Why did it not work?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well? It seems to me that the government have really
got a bit impression that this country's made up of
larger businesses. But I might not said it so often.
Ninety seven percent of all the enterprises in New Zealand
a small businesses. And that's the problem. They're small. They
don't have a lot of large money for robotics and
AI and all these other special things that are really

(01:00):
making the world hum at the moment, and so we're
at the rock bottom of our productivity in the whole
OE c D. So what's happening is our companies are inefficient, ineffective,
and we're still Our talent is just leaving in droves
and you know, the brain brain as they call it.

(01:20):
But it certainly is affecting small business. I know of
so many businesses now that I'm going to shut their
door or have done. And even in our family there's
three people that we know of who are terrified right now.
They are about to lose their jobs and they can't
find anything else. It really is affecting the real people

(01:41):
of New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, so the productivity, the lack of productivity is affecting us.
But there's also the belief, and you'll hear it on talkback,
is that there are so many people enjoying the lifestyle
of being on a benefit, supplementing it with cash jobs
or unreported side hustles or crime or whatever. The question
is how many people are routing? Is how many anny
bloods do we have? Is that number in the tens

(02:04):
of thousands or is it a smaller than we might reckon?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, I believe there might have been a lot of
that after COVID because they quite enjoyed the year staying
at home. But Lark, but I think it's not as
bad as it used to be. There are some people
out there, but I think those numbers are small. But
I think what is more concerning for New Zealand, and
I think our productivity shows it is that the talents

(02:27):
leaving and drows. Yes, some people are staying home, but
I think what we ought to be seeing Andrew that
the answer to this is that our government should stop.
They've done a wonderful job blocking leakage of money out
of the system, but look at what they do need
to do is focus on productivity and get incentives in
place so the home loans are then redirected into business

(02:49):
loans and also maybe put some assistance in for helping
businesses understand better robotics AI get these things, are automation
going into the workplaces a lot better. You know, like
farmers for example, all around the world, are you using well,
they don't even drive tractors anymore. They set them on
their way and away they go. There's so much to

(03:12):
be that could be done, get our productivity up and
to make out some more of effective nation.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Max. I thank you so much. News Talks MB and
here's the thing. Overall numbers of people on the benefit
did actually drop by one point three percent, so it
is working.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
For more. From Early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
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