Video: On the unemployment leap
Agnitio sent me a couple of links to an interview I did on unemployment last night (here and here).
It is consistent with what I wrote yesterday, even if it doesn’t seem that way. Furthermore, I don’t believe the government was too “inactive” in this case – we aren’t a centrally planned economy, blaming the government appears pretty arbitrary.
Relative to my expectations (which albeit were low) the government actually performed quite well in terms of the recession – by not really doing anything excessive, but still trying to make sure that any painful transitions are smoothed over (by not removing, and augmenting, automatic stabilisers).
we are coming out of recession, things should change now
Like many “new” countries, like the US, New Zealand is a nation of immigrants, people arriving these days generally have skills that are in short supply, or are from the less fortunate parts of the world and (generalizing) have far less skills to offer and so take on jobs that the settled population are not interested in.
Unemployment is up across the world even in nations where there is very little immigration, so the fact that New Zealand’s unemployment situation is better than in most western country’s underlines the fact that immigration is not having that great an effect as many would believe
@New Zealand holidays
Definitely. Immigrants create jobs and well as move into them after all.