The Labour Party says New Zealand's 90-day-trial period is not creating jobs but has become a device to get rid of staff when the time is up.
Labour MP and leadership candidate Andrew Little has argued the trial period does not create jobs or help employees. Photo: RNZ / Demelza Leslie
The Employment Relations Amendment Bill, currently before Parliament, makes sweeping changes to collective agreements, strike action and rest and meal breaks, leaving the 90-day trial period in place.
More on this story from Radio NZ Economics Correspondent Patrick O'Meara
Labour's labour relations spokersperson and leadership contender, Andrew Little, told Sunday Morning many employers did not use the 90-day-trial period.
"The Government bases their claim that it is creating jobs or adding jobs on a pretty discredited piece of research that came out a few months after the law came in, in 2009, that said it had created 13,000 jobs in six months. It hadn't done that because a piece of law like the 90-day trial period doesn't create jobs."
He said the trial period did not help employees and it had become a device to get rid of staff when the trial period is finished.
"We know, from a survey last year that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment undertook, that most of the workers who are taken on during the 90-day trial period don't get any feedback during that period."
Mr Little said all Labour leadership candidates agreed the future of work was an important issue.