Media Release: 11.20am Friday 30 May 2003
Stephen Tindall-the woman
Founder of MADENZ

"We are Importing Unemployment", MADENZ says

"What is significant in the current debate regarding welfare, is the absence in reporting the reality of how many jobs are available at the present point in time in New Zealand", says Stephen Tindall-the woman, founder of MADENZ.

"Some time ago I set about attempting to research this, as I believe it to be fundamental to this debate. The Ministry of Social Development could not satisfy my inquiry, so I was forced to rely upon the only statistics available - that of the ANZ Bank Job Ad Survey."

"Currently, and this figure does not seem to alter significantly on a month- to-month basis, there are 30,000 jobs advertised in New Zealand."

"Given that at least 150,000 New Zealanders require fulltime work, and another 100,000 tertiary students are coming on stream and will demand bangs for their student loan bucks, there is obviously an extraordinary shortfall between the number of jobs available and the number of jobs required," says Ms Tindall.

"Job creation is the key to this welfare problem and MADENZ believes import substitution is one of the key solutions."

"BERL concluded in a study that every $1 million of imported products costs 20.2 jobs. This equates to $182,426 in welfare payments."

"In 2001 New Zealand imported $2149 million ($2.1 billion) of products from China. These imports cost New Zealand 40,400 jobs and $364 million in welfare payments for that year."

"The majority of products imported from China are TCFC sector products (Textile, Clothing, Footwear and Carpets). In the meantime during the last fifteen years 20,000 New Zealand TCFC workers lost their jobs."

"This government ignores the obvious link between imported products and job losses for New Zealanders, at their peril."

"Instead of sending taxpayers money to China to help them deal with SARS, this government would have been better to spend this money promoting a Buy New Zealand campaign. Afterall, the Chinese government is not sending us aid to help us deal with our welfare problem- on the contrary - by importing their products we are importing unemployment".

Ends

Stephen Tindall-the woman MADENZ Tel/Fax 07 5745822 025 871128

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