Editorial: A job market leg-up

OPINION: The Government's planned changes to employment law are destined to be a key issue during next year's election campaign.

Extending the 90-day new worker trial scheme to all employers, tweaks to the rules around sick leave and holidays and tighter provisions governing personal grievance cases, when taken in tandem, signal a significant lurch to the right.

Coming after three terms of a Labour government, the new provisions are as predictable as the labour movement's volatile response to them was.

Some well-known leaders from the Left clearly relished the opportunity to take their discontent to the streets during the National Party's recent conference in Auckland, and unions are warning the campaign is only starting.

The age-old political power struggle is only one side of the story, however. Another angle was well illustrated in yesterday's Nelson Mail.

Karen Marfell, 41, is out of work through no fault of her own – the company she had a senior position with went into liquidation.

In just over two months she has applied unsuccessfully for 38 jobs.

She has experience and shows the sort of attitude and gumption that should impress any employer.

Though many job-seekers would be feeling disillusioned after so many knockbacks, she is staying positive.

It would be extraordinary if she stays out of work for much longer. The publicity from the Mail's story – run to help personalise a wider focus on unemployment in the region – will not hurt her search.

However, there are many hundreds of other workers in the upper South Island who are also looking for work.

The number on the unemployment benefit in the top of the south was put at nearly 1300 in the year to the end of June. Others, like Mrs Marfell, are not on the dole but still actively looking for a job.

One likely result of the 90-day employment trial being widened is that it will encourage bosses to take a chance on potential employees with less likelihood of being drawn into time-consuming and potentially costly personal grievance hearings if the relationship does not work out.

Employers who are only offering short-term work across a month or two are most likely to make that clear from the beginning.

Depending on the type of work, the first few weeks are often more about getting the new employee up to speed, so perhaps there is little point in bosses deliberately setting out to deceive or otherwise abuse the new laws.

Mrs Marfell's plight underlines the slow recovery in the Nelson region from the debilitating 15-month recession of two years ago.

Although nationally, economic growth has been recorded for four consecutive quarters up until March – the June figure is not due until September – some local employers are reporting that this year is proving tougher than ever. For them, "recovery lag" is real, and cruel.

Political and union argument about the fairness or otherwise of employment law reform is all very well, but for those who are out of work and not prepared to stay that way a day longer than necessary, the rhetoric surely pales alongside their realities.

National argues that its reform, when confined to smaller employers, gave the job market a much needed leg-up last year.

Those who are in Mrs Marfell's position will be hoping for another similar boost, one that cannot come soon enough.

- © Fairfax NZ News