Mike’s Minute: A different perspective on job losses

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

A little something from the perspective file.

Although things are dire and dour and straight up and down bad, in some areas they are not as bad as headlines would lead you to believe.

The best line of high drama I have read this week was around jobs. "It's like the Hunger Games", it said.

Is it? Really?

A lot of press has been given to those who have lost jobs of late.

The reason for this is because we haven't gone through a job loss scenario for a while in this country.

But if you've been around a while it isn't like the hunger games, or anywhere close to it.

The unemployment rate is currently 4.3%. It might be a little bit higher given some of our data is slow, but at worst it's thought it may get to 5% or a little bit over.

In a historic context, 5% is a little more than normal. What we are living through is moderately normal.

The same can be said about interest rates when it's in the 6's, maybe early 7's. Yes, it's a lot higher than what they have been, but in context it's not remotely unusual at all.

In these examples is the value of institutional knowledge.

Much of the coverage of job losses and the ensuing Hunger Games has been based around the public service, which brings in another interesting aspect of jobs and choices

I read the plight of a person recently laid off who was off to Australia because the work they did no longer desisted here. They were going to Melbourne where the Government puts more funding into the social work they do. Which is great, if that’s your calling. But choosing a job that's no niche that it no longer exists surely was a risky choice in the first place.

That's like the person whose story I also read who got laid off from the Auckland light rail project. Surely when they applied they knew that wasn’t long for this world?

Having lost a couple of jobs myself there is no question it sucks, especially if it comes as no fault of your own.

The job ads may be down and the applications may be up, but at no point is what we are going through any more arduous, difficult or unusual than we have been through many a time before, and indeed will go through again.

What I suspect has changed is resilience.

There isn't as much of it about these days and that’s why "normal" seems like the Hunger Games.

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