would no longer be eligible<\/a> to claim unemployment benefits.<\/p>\nTaranaki is top of the table when it comes to 15-24-year-olds NEETs, the acronym for people who are currently: not in employment, education, or training.<\/p>\n
Just released TradeMe job data showed the number of vacancies advertised in Taranaki had dropped more than 5.5 percent compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n
Tolland told Checkpoint the job hunt so far had been slow.<\/p>\n
“There’s an incredible amount of competition, because of how few jobs there really are around here.”<\/p>\n
He said he had been trying to apply for retail roles, but without much success.<\/p>\n
“There are very very few of those around here. Most of our jobs I’d say around Taranaki tend to be more agricultural based, forestry, that sort of stuff, and of course the dairy industry is massive. Other than that, there’s really not a hell of a lot here.”<\/p>\n
While he would like to stay in the area, he does not think that is going to be a realistic possibility, something he does not feel great about.<\/p>\n
“I think that at some point or another I will have to end up moving to another area to find any sort of employment.”<\/p>\n
“One could argue that yes, it does open up doors for different life experiences, but some people would like to stay close to home where they feel comfortable.”<\/p>\n
While Tolland was determined to find a job, he was stuck surviving on a benefit.<\/p>\n
“It’s not great because the government benefit that is provided is usually just to provide a baseline support level for a person’s survival. It doesn’t really factor in much else, especially given … the prices of food and all that recently.”<\/p>\n
Work and Income had supplied Tolland with a careers advisor, who had told him to get a driver’s licence to broaden his job opportunities.<\/p>\n
“I have been working with my careers adviser to actually start taking driving lessons and I’m very, very close to getting my restricted licence.”<\/p>\n
He said it was challenging to keep his spirits up while job hunting and he was disappointed of the prime minister’s view of young job hunters.<\/p>\n
“The majority of younger people are actually very, very, very eager to work. It’s just a matter of there are very few opportunities for that now and realistically, we kind of don’t have a choice but to be on a benefit.”<\/p>\n
Murray had also struggled to find employment in Taranaki and had spent the last couple of years hunting.<\/p>\n
“Multiple people tend to apply for the same position, so it’s very hard to get your foot in the door or to even really get a job interview. Especially because you apply for a job, there’s like 50 or sometimes even 100 people that will apply for the same position.”<\/p>\n
Murray said it was important to him to find a job, particularly as he wants to pursue he dreams of being an author one day.<\/p>\n
He had completed a qualification at an educare training facility in Taranaki, which included work experience at schools, but had not had paid work before.<\/p>\n
While he was currently surviving on the benefit, Murray said he would much rather be working.<\/p>\n
“Life on the benefit is pretty hard, very hard to be able to live and to pay bills because you barely get enough, you’re barely even scraping by.”<\/p>\n
Despite being unsuccessful so far, Murray said he had been trying hard to find a job.<\/p>\n
“I have been doing my best to apply for at least one job every day.<\/p>\n
“It can be a little sad sometimes, and sometimes you might think, well, is there something wrong with me? Like, there’s something wrong with my CV?”<\/p>\n
Trade Me Jobs data showed that the sector with the most entry level job listings in Taranaki – roles paying $30 or less per hour – was healthcare and caregiving, with almost 23 percent of entry level jobs in the region, followed by retail with 18 percent.<\/p>\n
Jobs for kitchen staff, store people and warehouse workers, along with jobs in processing and assembly each made up about 5 percent of available entry level jobs in the region.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two young people spoke to Checkpoint about the challenge of finding work in Taranaki right now. (file photo).…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3092],"tags":[1816,51,9409,897,12,196,10975,10973,10974,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-514035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-current-affairs","11":"tag-jobs","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-podcasts","14":"tag-public-radio","15":"tag-radio-new-zealand","16":"tag-rnz","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115405809755251198","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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