Another 500 swell benefit queues

Kathryn King | 28th July 2010

 Almost 500 people in the region have gone on to benefits in the past three months - nearly half on unemployment benefit, Ministry of Social Development statistics show.

And until the economy improves, the numbers will continue to rise, People's Centre field worker Gary Reid says.

The latest regional quarterly figures for Taranaki, Wanganui and King Country region show 16,217 people aged 18-64 were receiving a benefit last month - up from 15,727 in March.

The unemployment benefit saw the biggest rise, going from 2324 in March to 2541 - an increase of 217 people in three months.

The increase  mostly  involved recipients in the 18-24 age group, rising from 23.6 per cent to 25 per cent in the last quarter.

The uptake of people on the domestic purposes benefit was the next highest, going up by 131 to 5547.

Sickness and invalid benefit beneficiaries also increased, with 47 people taking up the invalids' benefit, and 80 on sickness since March.

Mr Reid said things had been getting tougher for people, and the People's Centre workload had increased noticeably in the last month.

"We seem to be getting quite a few phonecalls, mostly about the unemployment benefit and the domestic purposes benefit.

 He said quite a few businesses in Wanganui  had closed recently, which will have contributed to the situation, too.

The People's Centre had made 1400 interventions in the last 12 months and saw 631 new clients, he said.

"We have had some cases of middle-income earners who have come in and had quite a shock to find out what the benefit is worth. That's something we didn't see two or three years ago."

They also had taken a lot of calls regarding food grants that they hadn't had before, he said.

 A recession existed, no matter how positive a spin  was put on it.

"I'll only believe we are coming out of a recession when I see unemployment numbers drop. There are still places closing down and people losing their jobs.

"It won't be until the economic climate gets better we will see these unemployment figures start to drop."

The Work and Income website had 14 job listings for Wanganui, Bulls and Marton. TradeMe Jobs listed 19 in Wanganui, Seek had 18.

Saturday's Chronicle featured 25 situations vacant adverts.

Mr Reid said he didn't think employers  would hire more people until the economy picked up.