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Speaker 1: Mandatory monthly phone calls have been introduced by the Ministry

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Speaker 1: of Social Development between those on a job seeker support

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Speaker 1: benefit and case managers. The service is aimed at eighteen

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Speaker 1: to twenty four year olds, with case managers getting in

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Speaker 1: touch with their clients. Do we call them clients at

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Speaker 1: least once every twenty eight days. Any job seeker that

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Speaker 1: misses their call without a good reason could face sanctions.

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Speaker 1: Joining me now as employment relations expert Max Whitehead, Max,

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Speaker 1: Good morning. What do these case managers actually make a difference?

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Speaker 1: Do you think?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Right, I think most certainly. There's nothing like getting

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Speaker 2: a bit of a nudge every now and again. Hey, hey,

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Speaker 2: wake up, you've got a potential job here. Why don't

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Speaker 2: you give it a call. I think it's a brilliant idea,

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Speaker 2: and I think that something that I think as taxpayers,

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Speaker 2: should have expected to happen a long time ago. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: keep on the ball of those people that we're paying

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Speaker 2: to sit at home.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I was quite surprised to hear that less than

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Speaker 1: a third of those that are getting that job seeker

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Speaker 1: support benefit actually receive the case manager service at this point.

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Speaker 2: Well, they meet and I would hope that our you know,

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Speaker 2: the public servants who we pay to look after these

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Speaker 2: people will respond to this even more. But I believe

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Speaker 2: we're going to put on a lot more staff to

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Speaker 2: enable this to happen. And look, Ryan, it's only fair,

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Speaker 2: you know, the taxpayers. These are people that go to

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Speaker 2: work every day. These are the people that are subject

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Speaker 2: to employment law. Do you know what the employment law requires?

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Speaker 2: That they are communicative and responsive. Now, surely somebody is

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Speaker 2: sitting at home, not even to go to work every

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Speaker 2: day should be subjected to the same rules, and that

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Speaker 2: is to be responsive to a phone call. And I'm

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Speaker 2: certainly very much in favor of it. And a phone

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Speaker 2: call is exactly what they needed, just to give them

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Speaker 2: a little wake up because some of these young people

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Speaker 2: are not too disciplined when they come out of school

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Speaker 2: and getting them ready for work a disciplinary Hey, you

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Speaker 2: need to come and do so and so otherwise you

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Speaker 2: in up to go and get cut I think is

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Speaker 2: the right way to go.

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Speaker 1: Max White here the employment law specialist with us this morning. Max,

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Speaker 1: thanks very much for your time.

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