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Lindsay Mitchell
lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com
After looking solely at Jobseeker Benefit and COVID Income Relief Payment numbers the Stuff journalist says,
Many jobs are being lost as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. But not 400 a day.
Towards the conclusion of the first leaders’ debate, Judith Collins said “the fact” that 400 people are losing their jobs every day is the thing that matters most to her this election.
It was a refrain she had repeated several times throughout the debate – 400 people a day are losing their jobs under the current government.
There is no argument that many, many people are out of work because of Covid-19; either laid off or on severely reduced hours. But are 400 people really losing their jobs every day?
The writer did not take this graph into account.
1,350 of the 4,123 grants were transfers from CIRP. That still leaves 555 jobs a day in a five day week (396 in a 7 day week).
Then there were an additional 1,206 CIRP grants suggesting a further 241 redundancies (or 172 in a 7 day week).
The trap the journalist has fallen into is looking only at net numbers – the difference between grants and cancels. Neither does she consider that some who lose their job will go on other benefits such as the emergency and sole parent support benefits. Or they might not even go on a benefit if it was a part-time second household income job.
If anything Judith may be understating it. Substantially.
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