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Changing Times

Number 9 October 2003

Newsletter of the Work & Age Trust NZ

www.nework.co.nz

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Employment and Unemployment Counting in NZ where do portfolio workers fit?
Other employment statistics
Australian Visits
25 Future Realities
Reading
The Top 20 Skills
Websites for third age baby boomers

Employment and Unemployment Counting in NZ where do portfolio workers fit?

New Zealand has a range of official methods for measuring employment and unemployment. Below are definitions of each measure and the official June 2003 statistics.

The official unemployed rates are an internationally recognised figure for unemployment based on the Household Labour Force Survey run by Statistics New Zealand. In June 2003 95,000 (or 1 in 20 people) were officially unemployed.
The jobless are those without a job and wanting a job . These figures are based on the Household Labour Force Survey run by Statistics NZ. The jobless numbered 161,700 (or 1 in 12 people) in June 2003.

According to Statistics NZ, the difference between the official unemployment figures and the jobless figures is that many of the people who count as jobless are available for work but are not actively seeking it.

Registrations of job seekers at Ministry of Social Development (WINZ) numbered 144,575 in June 2003.
The underemployed are workers who are employed part time but would prefer to work more hours according to Statistics New Zealand. 103,600 underemployed were counted in June 2003.
The number of people in jobs was 1,911,000 in June 2003.

The question is, where do portfolio workers count in the official statistics? No doubt some of us call ourselves fulltime workers and some of us call ourselves part time workers or underemployed. But do these terms accurately reflect the way we work? The official statistics are based on traditional work patterns. Indications are that work patterns are changing quite rapidly. If the official statistics are to be meaningful, they need to reflect the changes. Where do these figures show the individual patterns of cyclical employment and unemployment? Where do they show the parents who work in term time only? Where do they show portfolio workers? Where do they show those with multiple jobs?

By not accurately reflecting changing patterns of employment policy decisions based on the official information can have a negative effect on those who are doing their best to make a healthy, balanced contribution to their own and their family s wellbeing.

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Other employment statistics

Age matters
One in 7 young people (15-19 year olds) were unemployed in June 2003 while one in 59 mature people (50-65 year olds) were unemployed.

Gender issues

And in case you think all is the same between men and women in the employment world, look at these figures!

New Zealand changes in part time work

While studies in countries such as Australia, France and Britain suggest that part time work is becoming increasingly popular, it is interesting to note that the gain in full time employed in the year to June 2003 was 34,000 people while the rise in the number of part time workers was only 3,000 for the same period.

Figures courtesy of the Jobs
Letter www.jobsletter.org.nz

Statistics NZ figures	Full-time	Part-time
Men	917,200 (89%)	118,100 (11%)
Women	543,600 (63%)	322,400 (37%)
Total	1,460,800	440,500

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FREETERS IN JAPAN

The structure of the Japanese workforce is changing as one-in-nine Japanese workers between 15 34 years now move readily between jobs, and often work part-time, in contrast to the Japanese tradition of staying with one company for life. The Japanese call these casual workers "freeters" and government analysts are concerned that increasing numbers of these low-paid workers will result in falling tax revenue. Freeters could affect Japan's future economic productivity since few of them receive specialised training, an important feature of high worker productivity.

There is also concern that freeters are not having children. This may be a reflection of their disinterest in joining in with the traditional Japanese work-lifestyle, but another factor could be that they don't earn enough to support a family. With an already declining birth rate, this will further threaten the future viability of the Japanese pension system.

Many freeters say they are choosing the work-lifestyle because they don't have enthusiasm for life-long careers. Others simply have trouble finding full-time permanent work as the unemployment rate in Japan is nearing record highs.

Source New Zealand Herald 7-8 June 2003 "Freeters make time for work and play" By Kazunori Takada

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Future of Work

Conference

Wellington

4-6 November 2003

The PSA conference this year focuses on the future of work.

For more details visit the PSA website www.psa.org.nz/futurework.asp

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Australian Visits

Our chairperson Roger Tweedy is off to OZ again and will be visiting our kindred organisation the Future of Work Foundation in Melbourne and presenting a paper at the SA Volunteering Conference on Volunteering and the Future of Work he promises a report on the Barossa Valley 2003 Vintage

Roger has also been selected as a member of the NZ Delegation to the Commonwealth Youth Enterprise Conference in Queensland in November.

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25 Future Realities

Neworker Tom Law surfs the net and finds some American predictions for the future of work.

Throughout the world people with the wonderful title of Futurist are making predictions of one sort or another. We have probably heard many of them before. For instance, we have heard about the paperless office and computers taking over.

Here is a selection of predictions off the internet for the next decade.

In the next decade real household incomes will rise by one-third!
One-quarter of all consumer purchases will be made over the Internet.
Over one-third of all new successful job seekers will be minorities or immigrants.
International trade in NAFTA nations will grow faster than domestic commerce.
Most computers will have conversational personalities, and will respond to verbal instructions.
Markets for most consumer goods and services - from finance and banking to autos, appliances and restaurants - will be dominated by a handful of giant global or national firms.
Electronic commerce will replace over 95% of retail cash transactions.
In the western world, one-third of all adults will be enrolled in training programs or continuing education, many on-line.
Numbers of small- and medium-sized businesses will grow.
Twenty five to 30% of all gainful employment will take place in the home.
Households will outsource many domestic tasks such as home maintenance and financial management
Twenty five percent of all workers will be temporary or part time.
Everyone will carry a wireless web-enabled videophone.
Ninety five percent of all office operations will be paperless.
Most baby boomers will be unwilling, or unable to retire until after 2010.
Supply of skilled workers will remain tight.
Women will make up half of the workforce.
Over 90% of all jobs will make daily use of computers.
Most 16 - 35 year olds will expect one-stop, on-line financial services.

What are the implications of such possible changes for you and your business?

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Reading

Roger Tweedy reports on Bernard Salt s new book, The Big Shift.

Australian author, Bernard Salt, provides a fast-paced and articulate interpretation of the cultural forces that shape the Australian people in "The Big Shift."

Salt notes that the baby boomers who are now in the 42-57 year old age range, are pursuing work-life balance as well as the SeaChange shift. They are organising work around their lives, rather than their lives around work.

He says males aged 55-59 are scaling back their workforce commitments while females are increasing their commitments.

Salt finds that there is a shared blending of work commitments with lifestyle. Part-time work is gathering momentum and now comprises 29% of all jobs - up from 17% in 1983.

http://www.thebigshift.com

Murphy, John; Thomas, Barrie and Glazebrook, Mark (2002). Partnerships with business a guide for small community groups. Wellington: The Triple A Foundation.

A clear, easy-to-follow, 50 page guide for those wanting to work with businesses. The authors have experience in BP and the Body Shop as well as social/community work experience.

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The Top 20 Skills

Bruce Phillips presents an Australian view of what skills workers need in the current climate

As the Information Age turns the nature and type of work we do on its head, our traditional views of work, professions and specialist skills are continually challenged and reshaped. Here s one consultant s take on what a modern manager needs to know in a world of change and competition.

Let's look for a moment at how our traditional view of the world is being assaulted. The prospect of a lifelong career in one organisation is now a pipe dream. The prospect of fulltime employment without some periods of unemployment is unrealistic.

Permanent full-time employment continues to disappear. Part-time and casual employment continues to grow.

New and different forms of work practice are continuing to develop. Manual work has already been largely displaced by technology. Decision making work is increasingly being displaced by technology. The effects of globalisation are already apparent. A sneeze by a trading partner on the other side of the world can see us catch a cold. A global view of any market is an absolute necessity. The speed of information transfer reduces business advantage from innovation to weeks or months rather than years.

A single degree is no longer a career end point it's the starting point. Moving between jobs is the norm not the exception. Technology will continue to force more and more people to compete for fewer and fewer jobs. The new displaced people will be managers, not blue collar employees.

Organisational size doesn't matter in terms of business profitability. Protected intellectual property has a reduced lifespan and value. Speed of action may be more critical than quality of action. Organisations will reshape and restructure five times more often than 20 years ago. The impact of this age is only starting.

Do better than cope

In this environment, the speed of change is probably the only constant. How do we develop strategies, not simply to cope, but to take advantage of this world in which we live?

We can hope that it goes away. We can demand that the government makes it go away. We can think about it until our brain hurts. We often make the mistake of thinking that business, or government for that matter, has some monopoly on crystal ball gazing. In reality, they are trying as hard as the rest of us to make some sense of future directions.

The Information Age influences employers' thinking about what skills their employees need. Employers are not always terribly sure themselves. This may be part of the reason that some organisations shed one group of employees, and over time build staffing levels back up, with a different group of employees.

My guess is, the change is not going to go away. Change will become more rapid. Business and government will continue to be uncertain.

Business will lead

It is my view that once again the lead will come from sharp-edge businesses, which will develop a future strategy, take a gamble, build the skills they need, and gain market advantage from their courage.

I am prepared to take such a gamble. I think that there is a set of core skills that will provide a major impact on business growth over the next 10 years, and employees who have effectively developed these skills will be in demand. These skills will generally be additional to either a single or double degree in a particular discipline.

Having these skills will still mean the same level of change for people. But having these core skills may mean that you are able to move fluidly from one job, or project to another, without the level of dislocation faced by others who don't have these skills.

Give us thinkers

The blurring of the edges of specialisation and singular professional focus is one of the interesting aspects of this change process. Increasingly, professionals are moving out of their specialisation to use their skills in other areas. Accountants move into general management roles. Teachers leave to run small businesses, work as counsellors or as human resource managers. Lawyers give up the strict practice of law to become rock band managers, entrepreneurs and business owners.

Of 20 professionals in my day to day network, 16 now work outside the profession in which they initially qualified.

Employers in Australia have clearly stated that they prize flexibility, ability to adapt, people who can "think outside the square", people who can solve problems and challenge the status quo in finding new and better ways to do things.

Employers have also stated that they are not all that fussed about what a graduate employee's first degree is. Their view is that university has taught a young person how to research, present and argue a case. In the United States, the pressure is on for people to stay longer at university to get a second degree and develop a broader based education. There is also a trend for one of those degrees to be in liberal arts.

As the process of future confusion continues to be a reality for business, then I believe that this trend will continue. Employers will seek people who can think, who can research, who love confusion and change, who are flexible and who will be happy because employers are not that sure where we're all headed either.

Bruce Phillips has designed an on-line questionnaire for you to assess the suitability of your skills in the current climate. You can find the questionnaire on www.seek.co.au/editorial/0-2-1_20_skills.htm

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