New Zealand has shown great resilience in the face of COVID-19, yet our youth unemployment rates are higher than a lot of OECD countries. There are also a number of countries that have lower COVID resistance, based on the Bloomberg COVID resistance score, yet also manage to have lower youth unemployment rates. As we slowly overcome the OMICRON wave and easy travel restrictions it is believed that the economy will slowly recover. Will this then influence youth unemployment in New Zealand?

Statistics New Zealand have argued that over the year to the September 2021 quarter, the youth unemployment rate (15 – 24 years) had a sharp and significant drop of 3.6 percentage points to 9.6 per cent, bringing it close to pre-COVID-19 levels. The youth unemployment rate in the September 2021 quarter was three times that of the national average, matching the ratio in the December 2018 quarter. What are we doing to change this?