Source - The Dominion 22 July 1995 "Working women breaking records"

Source - The Dominion "Yardstick" 26 July 1995

Martin Bennett, chairman of Farm Education and Training Association (Feta), and a farmer himself, says his colleagues have short memories. "They're suffering a backlash from last season when so many people were laid off," he told the Waikato Times. "It's a case of once bitten, twice shy..." During the summer drought, farm labourers were the first to go. In many cases they received no redundancy payments from their employers. Clive Dalton of the Waikato Polytech says the shortage might make farmers stop hiring and firing without thinking it through. He says that security of tenure was the biggest problem for workers.

Source - The Waikato Times 21 July 1995 "Farmers face `backlash' on employment"

Source - New Zealand Herald 24 July 1995 "Labour outlines job scheme"

Source - New Zealand Herald 24 July 1995 "Part-time worker struggles"

Source - The Independent 21 July 1994 "Profile of a part-timer."

Ex-cabinet minister, and now economic consultant, David Butcher believes the idea is over-simplistic and poses a threat to the outcome it seeks. Butcher : "To say that employment should be the focus of one policy department is like saying that blooms should be the responsibility of one gardener, and roots and leaves the responsibility of another [...] The danger in Dennis Rose's idea is that by giving somebody this function, policymakers can kid themselves they have achieved something. The real answer is to focus all government policy advice on removing all obstacles to business competitiveness ..."

Dennis Rose says he isn't suggesting there are any simple solutions to unemployment : " ... I have consistently argued the need for multiple policy responses including the promotion of innovation, productivity and competitiveness, increased emphasis on training and skill formation, more flexible workplaces and work practices, improved programmes of assistance for the unemployed, making it easier for people to move between paid and unpaid work and between full and part time work, and using whatever freedom of manoeuvre we may have within macro-economic policy [...] If each of these policy avenues could allow us to clip 1% off the unemployment rate, we would be back to full employment..."

Source - David Butcher in letter to City Voice 6 July 1995 "Incentives for Growth" and Dennis Rose in 20 July 1995 "An agency for Jobs"

Source - The Dominion 27 July 1995 "Benefit fraud may be $500m a year"

Rifkin says that with government programmes diminishing worldwide and social nets shrinking, an increasing burden is going to be placed on the non-profit sector to provide a range of basic needs and services in the community. A tax-credit-for-volunteering scheme could go a long way towards encouraging people to spend a greater share of their spare time to community work. While it would mean a loss of tax revenue to government, Rifkin believes this would be compensated for by a diminished need to pay for expensive government programmes that could be handled by volunteer efforts.

The `social economy' is big business in America, but the contribution of volunteers is being eroded by the unemployment and poverty. More than 89 million Americans currently volunteer their time each year, and Rifkin estimates their contribution to be worth $182 billion to the social economy. Over the last five years, however, the number of people who volunteer (and the amount of time they give) has been dropping. Rifkin: " This is in large part because working people, anxious over diminishing wages and the loss of well-paying jobs, are spending more hours engaged in part-time work to bring in needed extra income."

Source - "The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin (pub Jeremy P.Tharcher/ Putman) 1994 as summarised in The Utne Reader May-June 1995.