Youth Labour Markets in Post-1984 New Zealand: Young People Negotiating School to Work Transitions

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger project exploring the school to post-school choices of New Zealand’s first post-1984 generation. In this paper we analyse census data relating to the employment of young people (aged 15-24 years) in two of the project’s sites, Southland and Auckland. We then discuss out participants’ perceptions of the labour market and find that these perceptions are broadly in line with general labour market trends, and that they incorporate a reasonable sense of the local opportunities for part time employment while at school. But participants lacked this ‘local literacy’ when considering future employment possibilities. That is, they lack a clear sense of engagement with ‘place’ in relation to their imagined working futures.