The Household Labour Force Survey is out, and it shows that unemployment has spiked again to 6.8%. 158,000 people are now out of work - an increase of 53,000 since National took office. In addition, an extra 92,000 have given up and left the labour force, while we have an extra 31,000 long-term unemployed. For a government which came to power promising to keep people in work, its an appalling record. While they can blame the recession to some extent, they are responsible for their response to it. And looking at the statistics, that response has been dismal and done nothing for those in need.
Solving this problem is going to require an active, interventionist government. Instead National has cut job-schemes and is taking a hands-off approach. They want to leave the market to sort itself out. The problem is that while it will (probably) do that eventually, it will happen at an enormous human cost. National doesn't care about that, because they care about market purity (and wealthy men’s profits) more than people. But we should demand our government does more - and vote them out if they refuse.
