scholarly journals Employment in New Zealand

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Hazledine
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Macroeconomic Performance ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
Neoclassical Economic Theory ◽  
Post War ◽  
Opening Up

Explaining post-war employment and unemployment in New Zealand is problematic for neoclassical economic theory. Up until the late 1970s the economy was overlaid with controls and 'rigidities' of many sorts, interfering with the operation of ‘free' market forces. Yet it delivered virtually zero unemployment without being unusually prone to inflationary pressures. From the 1980s onwards, our economy has been subjected to a remarkable regime of policy 'reform', involving the opening up of markets to overseas competition, the dismantling or  emasculating of centralised and/or collectivist institutions, and the adoption of an extreme version of monetarist ideology. Yet throughout these years of actions aimed at fostering ‘free markets', the actual macroeconomic performance of the markets, measured by the mismatch between supply and demand in the labour market (unemployment) has persistently deteriorated, with unemployment rates rising from less than half of one percent as late as 1977 to above 10% in the early 1990s. That is, the more market-oriented we became, the worse the markets performed. How can this be? The research program on which the present paper is a progress report tests hypotheses that can explain how both Keynesian and monetarist orthodoxies miss important aspects of New Zealand reality, and develops a model based on empathy between supply and demand sides of the labour market that is consistent with non-inflationary over-full employment.

scholarly journals Organisational Adjustment and the Labour Market in New Zealand

1970 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Harris ◽  
Bridget Daldy
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Unemployment Rates ◽  
Export Sector ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War

Post-war New Zealand enjoyed exceptionally low unemployment rates as compared to other industrialised countries, especially after the boom years of the 1960s when unemployment rates rose in nearly all OECD countries. This can be explained by government policies regulating and protecting the economy from outside influences. Extensive use of high tariffs, import licensing and quotas meant that New Zealand had one of the highest levels of effective protection amongst OECD countries (OECD, 1990). The government also embarked on a "think big" campaign in addition to the active support given to a number of loss making government trading enterprises. The net result was that full employment was achieved through job creation and maintenance in those public and protected sectors shielded from foreign and domestic competition. The cost, however, was the reduced competitiveness of the export sector and "the creation of an insular, inefficient, increasingly rigid, inflation-prone economy-which proved ill adapted to external shocks and to the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing world economy" (OECD, 1990: 13). Since 1984, and the incoming Labour Government's radical change of strategy (i.e. commitment to free market policies), employment levels have fallen and consequently unemployment has risen.

An Economic Approach to Teacher Loss and Retention

1973 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Selby Smith
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Salary Structure ◽  
Australian Education ◽  
Career Structure

In the late 1960's the imbalance between the supply and demand for teacher services was fundamental to the problems of Australian education. This article outlines an analytical framework which helps in understanding some important features of that imbalance. The paper comes to three main conclusions: that high levels of teacher resignation were probably a rational response to the conditions governing their recruitment and the level and career structure of their earnings; that if resignation rates for teachers are to be reduced in a full employment labour market, changes are required in their salary structure and career prospects; and that the statistical data available on a consistent national basis are seriously inadequate for satisfactory economic analysis.

scholarly journals Efficiency-wage model

Sociologija ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-474
Author(s):  
Nikola Fabris
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Classical Theory ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Market Equilibrium ◽  
Efficiency Wage ◽  
Human Labour

In classical theory, the labour market operates as any other market, that is, the supply and demand determines the equilibrium between wages and the number of employees. The Keynesians went a step further by pointing out that the labour market does not follow the same principle as other markets and that wages do not change due to numerous rigidities, i.e. that the equilibrium is not achieved with full employment. The neoclassical macroeconomics reverts to the classical theory, noting that the labour market equilibrium is achieved immediately. The weakness of these theories is that they do not sufficiently consider specific features of the labour market and/or human labour. However, the new Keynesians went a step further in this direction by developing the efficiency wage model incorporating both economic and sociological explanations in the labour market interpretation. Nevertheless, it seems that there is still enough room for further improvements of this model and the paper communicates certain suggestions to that end.

scholarly journals Regional Labour Market Dynamics and Economics Participation: The Mediation Role of Education and Training Institutions

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Bartley ◽  
Ann Dupuis ◽  
Anne De Bruin
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Education And Training ◽  
Market Dynamics ◽  
Regional Labour Market ◽  
Economic Participation ◽  
Training Institutions ◽  
And Training

Since the late 1970s in New Zealand, education and training have been essential elements as governments have grappled with maintaining and increasing the employability of the labour force. This paper reports on one phase of the Labour Market Dynamics and Economic Participation research programme which addresses the role that education and training institutions play in mediating labour supply and demand and promoting economic participation within various New Zealand regional labour markets. The paper refines and extends some of the key concepts of the Department of Labour's Human Capability Framework to explore the effectiveness of regional education and training institutions, and other intersecting regional and national organisations, in mediating regional labour market supply and demand.

scholarly journals Before and After the Fall: New Zealand Economists on the Post-war Unemployment Experience

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Chapple
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Post War

What explanations did economists advance for New Zealand's remarkable experience of full employment between 1938 and 1980? What causes did they suggest for the breakdown and subsequent massive rise in unemployment? This paper categorises and critically surveys material on these questions as part of a wider project on New Zealand's post-war unemployment experience.

scholarly journals Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blair Fix
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Development ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Relative Number ◽  
Multilevel Selection ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
The Self ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Neoclassical Economic Theory

Free markets are, according to neoclassical economic theory, the most efficient way of organizing human activity. The claim is that individuals can benefit society by acting only in their self interest. In contrast, the evolutionary theory of multilevel selection proposes that groups must suppress the self interest of individuals. They often do so, the evidence suggests, by using hierarchical organization. To test these conflicting theories, I investigate how the 'degree of hierarchy' in societies changes with industrial development. I find that as energy use increases, governments tend to get larger and the relative number of managers tends to grow. Using a numerical model, I infer from this evidence that societies tend to become more hierarchical as energy use grows. This result is inconsistent with the neoclassical theory that individual self-interest is what benefits society. But it is consistent with the theory of multilevel selection, in which groups suppress the self-interest of their members.

Book Review: In the Footsteps of Ethel Benjamin by Janet November

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Morris
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Woman Lawyer

This article is a book review of Janet November In the footsteps of Ethel Benjamin, New Zealand's first woman lawyer (Victoria University Press / Law Foundation, Wellington, 2009) 260 + xi pages, $50. Morris describes the book as the biography of a remarkable woman who was not only the first woman lawyer in New Zealand, but also a "poster girl" for proponents of opening up the legal profession to women in England. Morris notes that Benjamin's achievements still remind the reader of the work that needs to be done for women in law. However, the private life of Benjamin is difficult to decipher from this book due to a lack of private papers kept by Benjamin. The article concludes that in Janet November's book, we have a fitting testament to the achievements and legacy of Ethel Benjamin.

scholarly journals What factors enable mid‐life carers to re‐enter the labour market in New Zealand?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen J. A. Spijker ◽  
Fiona M. Alpass ◽  
Joanne Allen ◽  
Christine Stephens
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Labour Market

scholarly journals Solidarity of the shaken: from the experience (Erlebnis) to history

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Belejkaničová
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Critical Dialogue ◽  
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Post War ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Usual Pattern

AbstractIn his Heretical Essays, Jan Patočka introduces the concept of the solidarity of the shaken. He argues that it emerges in the conditions of political violence—the frontline experience (Fronterlebnis). Moreover, Patočka brings into discussion the puzzling concepts of day, night, metanoia and sacrifice, which only further problematise the idea. Researching how other thinkers have examined the phenomenon of the frontline experience, it becomes obvious that Patočka did not invent the obscure vocabulary ex nihilo. Concepts such as frontline experience, sacrifice and the metaphors of the day and night were commonly used by thinkers in the inter-war and post-war eras in their examination of community (Gemeinschaft). This study aims to reconstruct the idea of the solidarity of the shaken as contextualized within a broader scholarly debate on the concept of community (Gemeinschaft). Through the critical dialogue between Patočka’s works and the works of Ernst Jünger and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, this study will portray how Patočka, in his discourse on the frontline experience, follows the usual pattern of overcoming one’s individuality, transcending and opening up to the constitution of solidarity. This paper will argue that Patočka defined the solidarity of the shaken in an attempt to revive the positive aspects of a community and break with the regressive (if not sinister) uses to which it was put in the twentieth century.

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