Would Labour love to see wages drop?
The Government recently announced that it wants to keep all teens in school or training until they turn 18. This includes people on the Independant Youth Benefit.
Yet of all the people who are officially unemployed, about 6,200 - more than one in five - are being trained by the state at any one time and are on a training benefit. The rest are on the unemployment benefit. And these figures don't include youth.
So why then has unemployment not reduced since September last year - are many of these trainees beng recycled back onto the dole once training is finished? Are the rest of them in low paid jobs after once being in higher paid jobs. Is Labour happy that these people are now part of the workforce and it is content to see wages drop for a certain sector of the community who happen to have been on a benefit. Would Labour love to see wages drop by churning people from jobs onto the dole into training and out to low paid jobs if it means the participation rate is increasing? Could it be that median wages have dropped for these people in the year to September 2007 under a Labour Government as more re-entered the workforce and others got low paid jobs off teh dole
It's good that John Key doesn`t want to see wages drop, isn`t it.