Worried class of ’22

Students graduate into an uncertain jobs market

Like many recent graduates, Melissa Lama is as nervous as she is excited. The Otago University Students’ Association president was excited to finish years of study, but nervous because she was entering the workforce at a time of great economic uncertainty.

With inflation at a 32-year high, the Reserve Bank deliberately trying to force a recession, and thousands of job losses on the cards, there is not a lot to look forward to for recent graduates.

Lama said the current economic climate was a ‘‘widespread concern’’ for students.

‘‘We are going through a recession. When that happens budgets tighten and businesses change their priorities in terms of hiring . . . Students are worried,’’ Lama said.

Some who had studied for years with a particular career path in mind were having to change plans at the last minute because of a lack of options or job security, she said.

‘‘Undergrads are nervous about what jobs are out there. They think it’s going to be a very competitive market based on who you know. These are very real anxieties that students have,’’ Lama said.

Xavier Walsh is the co-president of Unite Union and is about to graduate in early 2023.

Walsh said it was no surprise new graduates were nervous, considering the economic environment they were walking into.

‘‘We are already struggling with the cost of living, we are already struggling to find affordable housing. Looking into the future and what is next, it is hard to not feel disillusioned,’’ Walsh said. Graduates of university and trades colleges had done what society had told them would give them a good start to their career, but were now finding out that it might not be enough to secure employment.

‘‘This younger generation is hopeful, they want to use their skills in meaningful work to change the world for the better. If they end up entering a labour market that does not appreciate them it will be quite disheartening.’’

Auckland University of Technology management professor Candice Harris said graduates entering the workforce in a recession may need to adjust their expectations.

‘‘University graduates choose particular courses of study often with the idea of getting their dream job,’’ Harris said.

‘‘In a recession, it may be possible that you don’t secure that dream job that you may have been able to in a tighter labour market.’’ Graduates should be aware that in a recession businesses may have less time for onboarding and new hires may be expected to ‘‘hit the ground running’’ to show a new employer their value, Harris said. But businesses should keep in mind that to neglect new workers during a recession could have negative ramifications down the line. ‘‘If you are a bank that has a graduate recruitment

Property investor Sue Harrison had a property sale fall over in early 2018 after low levels of meth contamination were found in a rental home she owned.

The country was gripped by what she calls meth contamination mania, and even small amounts posing no threat to human health were enough to derail a sale.

‘‘Suddenly, we thought we would be ripping off the Gib board,’’ says Harrison.

Just weeks later, meth mania suffered a fatal blow from the prime minister’s chief science adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman, who the Government had asked to look into meth contamination.

Gluckman’s report said there was no evidence of harm to human health from ‘‘third hand’’ exposure to meth residue on walls in rental homes where the drug had been smoked.

It was a huge blow to the private meth-testing industry, which had been doing lucrative meth clean-ups at homes where contamination was at levels 10 times lower than Gluckman said was safe.

Yet, 41⁄2 years later, Government foot-dragging over setting a national meth contamination standard has been an albatross around the necks of landlords, says landlord lobbyist Peter Lewis.

Before the Gluckman report, some landlords were hit with huge, and needless, costs to remediate homes where meth had been smoked, he said.

After Gluckman, there was an end to rentals becoming unrentable because of the testing industry’s bogus standards.

The toll of the meth mania on some tenants was also high. Some were kicked out of tenancies, including at Ka¯ inga Ora.

When Gluckman’s report was published, the Government ended those evictions, which slotted into a wider tolerance for bad behaviour of Ka¯ inga Ora tenants, which has drawn heavy criticism.

‘‘There has been a widely held perception that the presence of even low levels of meth residue in a house poses a health risk to occupants,’’ former housing and urban development minister Phil Twyford said at the time.

‘‘As a result, remediation to eliminate contamination has been an extremely costly business for landlords and an upheaval for tenants being evicted at short notice,’’ he said.

The official explanation for why it has taken so long for the Government to get meth contamination regulations in place is that the Covid pandemic slowed things down.

Lewis said he did not buy that. He believed shame played a big part.

‘‘It’s embarrassing and difficult to say, ‘We were wrong’,’’ he said.

‘‘It would not turn your hair green, it would not render your children sterile, that was an embarrassing thing for them to admit.’’

But after the Gluckman report, Ka¯ inga Ora moved quickly to adopt Gluckman’s standards, and so did the Tenancy Tribunal.

Tenants and landlords were no longer suffering needlessly, reducing the sense of political urgency, landlords believed.

ACT party leader David Seymour said regulating had never been an area of expertise for the Government.

Some regulations were put in place without cost-benefit analysis, he said.

‘‘Other times they can take five years to put anything in place,’’ Seymour said.

Dr Nick Kim, senior lecturer at Massey University’s school of health sciences, said the methtesting industry was built on the back of a number plucked from a 2010 Ministry of Health paper called Guidelines for the Remediation of Clandestine Methamphetamine Laboratory sites.

But the contamination level the meth-testing industry adopted for rental properties, and which Ka¯ inga Ora also used, was only ever intended for clandestine lab clean-ups, Kim said.

Meth labs often contained contamination from other dangerous chemicals used in the manufacture of meth, chemicals which were often hard to spot.

The contamination level listed in the Ministry of Health guidelines was never intended as a measurement of when a property owner should begin cleaning.

It was a test to indicate whether a property that had been used as a meth lab, with all those other dangerous chemicals

possibly present, had been decontaminated to an acceptable level.

It never made sense to use it to test homes where meth had been smoked, Kim said.

‘‘It was used out of context. They were looking around for a number, and that’s the one they found,’’ he said.

‘‘They took one number from a single table on a single page, and that was applied.’’

Kim said the meth-testing industry was totally unregulated, and as it grew, scientists were prevented from speaking out because they worked for employers, the Government included, for which they were not spokespeople.

‘‘They were powerless to do anything,’’ Kim said.

Gluckman’s report gave everybody permission to say what they thought and everyone expected the Government to pass regulations fast, he said.

When the regulations finally give landlords certainty, Housing Minister Megan Woods said they would be at a level consistent with Gluckman’s report.

Seymour wryly pointed out that after five years of the country having effectively adopted a workable solution using Gluckman’s science, perhaps regulations were not needed.

But Woods said that once they were in place in 2024, landlords could be fined up to $4000 for renting out homes contaminated above the levels set out in the regulations.

‘‘They were looking around for a number, and that’s the one they found.’’ Dr Nick Kim

Massey University