Job unfilled

The HoS reports:

The country’s unemployment rate is the highest it has been since 1999, but some employers are struggling to find people willing to take on manual work.

Several employers desperately seeking reliable workers say it is as if people are unprepared for the workforce and don’t want to prove themselves.

The unemployment rate for the March quarter was 7.1 per cent, the highest it has been since June 1999, and the youth rate was 23.4 per cent.

Hayden Bootton, of HSB Builders in Northland, said finding unskilled workers was difficult, despite offering apprenticeships.

He was offering $16 an hour for temporary workers and the minimum wage for permanent work, pay rises every six months and the prospect of a full builder’s wage of about $20 an hour at the end of training. …

Northland’s unemployment rate is almost 9 per cent, one of the country’s highest.

Brenda, who does not want her surname used, said it was not only a Northland problem. Her Waikato business hires labourers. She said people had worked a couple of days before quitting, and others had walked out when faced with a drug test.

I recall after I left university deciding not to apply for a job because it paid only $11 an hour, and was for four months only while someone took a long overseas trip. Later that day I reconsidered and recovered the advert from the bin and applied for it. My rationale was better to be in work on not great wages for even four months, than not working at all.

Four years later I left the employer earning close to double what I started on. I was so glad I took that initial relatively low paid job with no job security.