Job Market Monitor

NZ / Skills Gap / Rising generation out of jobs

November 19, 2012 8:30 am

As students look to next year, the Herald begins a week-long investigation into why so many are leaving school without the skills they need.

Students James Aylett and Paige Tapara of Rosehill College already have ideas about the careers they’d like to follow. Photo / Natalie Slade

A tragic mismatch of skills is shutting most of New Zealand’s record near-300,000 jobless out of most of the 15,000 jobs that are available.

Unemployment has stayed stubbornly high for more than three years now and the total “jobless”, including those discouraged from looking actively enough to be counted as “unemployed”, have hit a post-war record of 294,900.

Yet 30 per cent of employers in a September survey by the Institute of Economic Research said they were finding it difficult to recruit skilled workers, up from only 7 per cent three years ago.

The usual inverse relationship, where rising unemployment makes it easier for employers to find skilled labour, has broken down because the skills of the unemployed no longer match the skills that employers need…

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