"Multiple job holding in New Zealand: a Growing presence in New Zealands labour markets, 20-year trends"
- James Baines and James Newell

Paper presented at the Eleventh Labour Employment and Work (LEW) conference, Wellington, 22-23 November 2004.

This paper provides an analysis of trends in multiple job holding over the 20 year period from 1981 to 2001. The analysis builds on the initial statistical profile of the incidence of multiple job holding in New Zealand, based on the 2001 Census of Population and Dwellings. The longitudinal analysis utilises a new statistical library to obtain data on work over time. The analysis places the growth in multiple job holding and other forms of non-standard work in the context of the nations labour markets, as they went through the transformations of the mid-1980s, the recession of the late 1980s, and the subsequent economic recovery during the 1990s. The paper also reports some preliminary analysis of multiple job holding data from the Time Use Survey, which is unique in New Zealand statistics for the fact that it identifies the occupations involved in each of the jobs. This research programme is on going.

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"Effects of multiple job holding on the work-life balance"
- Wayne McClintock, Nick Taylor and Julie Warren

Paper presented at the Eleventh Labour Employment and Work (LEW) conference, Wellington, 22-23 November 2004.

Multiple job holding is a significant feature of the contemporary New Zealand labour market, with at least one in ten people actively involved in the workforce holding more than one job at a time. Research into the effects of multiple job holding on the lives of workers in three sectors shows there can be considerable impact on their work-life balance. The researchers conducted in-depth interviews with male and female health professionals, farmers, and café or restaurant workers. The research shows that multiple job holding is comparatively well established in the agriculture and health sectors, with multiple job holders expecting to remain as such for the longer term. While multiple job holding may be equally established in the café and restaurant sector, the multiple jobs holders do not generally expect to remain so for long so the multiple job holding appears more transitional. Multiple job holders, who typically work long hours, are motivated by a range of factors, with economic reasons dominating. However, personal factors and putting together a portfolio of work are also important. Overall, workers interviewed in the three sectors tend to hold their jobs because they want to rather than because they have to. Nevertheless, multiple job holding affects lives outside work, particularly family activities, participation in leisure and exercise, and community involvement. These effects on work-life balance vary by sector.

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"Social assessment of hydro-electricity development: lessons from the New Zealand experience"
- Nick Taylor, Gerard Fitzgerald and Wayne McClintock

Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the International Association for Impact Assessment, Vancouver, 26-29 June 2004.

New hydro electricity generation projects in New Zealand and elsewhere are meeting increasing competition for water resources from irrigation, urban use, tourism, conservation and recreation, and they are being challenged over the disruption they cause to existing communities. There is therefore increasing need for project decision making to be informed by social assessments. Most of the benefits from large-scale, capital-intensive hydroelectricity schemes are derived at the regional and national levels, while negative social impacts are experienced regionally and locally, and these projects potentially contribute little to the economic welfare of rural communities in either the short or long term. Thus the impacts of such projects on local communities should be projected, mitigated, monitored and managed over the project life cycle at the community, district and regional levels. In particular, the benefits to the local community (e.g. additional employment, increased business turnover, better amenities) should be maximised and the costs (e.g. negative environmental effects, social dislocation) minimised. Research on a series of New Zealand hydroelectricity projects shows that changes in the population and economy of new hydro towns and existing host settlements involve periods of both rapid growth and rapid decline, as the area moves through phases of the arrival, settlement and the eventual departure of the construction workers and their dependants. Unlike other communities that are economically dependent on a single industry, the main workforce impacts of hydro projects occur during construction. The subsequent operation of the power schemes involves relatively small workforces which are not always located at the same site as the construction workers. Social assessments therefore need to pay particular attention to construction workforce characteristics, labour supply, accommodation requirements and demand for social services.

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"Some characteristics of multiple job holding by New Zealand farm men and women"
- Nick Taylor and Wayne McClintock

Paper presented to the annual conference of the New Zealand Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, Blenheim, 25-26 June 2004.

Previous research and analysis based on data from the census indicate a high level of multiple job holding amongst New Zealand farm men and women. In 2003, sixty farm men and women were interviewed in the Ashburton District, as part of a larger study of multiple job holding in New Zealand. The definition of multiple job holding used in these interviews was paid or unpaid work for more than one employer or family business or farm in the course of any week. Respondents identified a wide range of work undertaken in addition to farm work, although the type of work varied for men and women. A high proportion of respondents had held two or more jobs for more than a year and two fifths for 10 years or more, again with differences for men and women. Some expect to hold more than one job for the rest of their working lives. The research shows that multiple job holding amongst farmers is more established as a long-term feature of farm households than supposed by observers in the aftermath of the 1980s "farm crisis". While back then farm men and women appear to have moved into multiple jobs because they had to, this new research shows that the reasons are now more complex. The respondents largely held multiple jobs because they want to, not because they have to. Nonetheless, economic reasons predominate for holding multiple jobs and there are implications for farm finances. Respondents also identified a range of social and economic benefits in having more than one job, as well as benefits from continuity of employment. Although the general view was that employment was relatively easy to find in the District. The research identified a number of effects of multiple job holding for personal, family and community lives, and difficulties for multiple job holders managing their work-life balance.

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