Brian Anderson The Western Front www.sunlive.co.nz

We know about the baby boomers, the group that has been with us since the '50s.

Governments since then have had to accommodate this population imbalance. Business wooed the boomers as a major segment in our society and much of the image of a successful New Zealander refers to this relatively spoiled segment of society. Unfortunately the rest of New Zealand has had difficulty achieving what the boomers considered their rights.

Another population aberration is underway at the moment and while we can see some of the evidence, it is hard for most to understand the problems of the current baby bust. The population demographics explained to the recent local government conference revealed an increase in old people, the supposed problem I mentioned last week, but the collapse in numbers of our population of young people between 18 and 30 years is going to stay with us for another 50 years.

The biggest threat is to our workforce, with the loss of those people that actually do any work and even produce wealth. We hear of a skills shortage but the list of skills shortages published last week were all in management or office occupations. No-one mentioned the shortage of skilled, trained and experienced workers. Apparently young fit cheap builders, bricklayers and electricians can be produced as needed from our technical institutes to meet seasonal needs of big business, or better still by employing cheap overseas workers.

Our young people need goals, targets, promotion opportunities and recognition for qualifications and experience. These goals used to be available. At the time the baby boomers were born, an engineer could pass exams and gain graduate qualifications but he could not practice as an engineer and receive a commensurate salary until he was 28 and had completed five years' practical work in his chosen field. Apprentices worked for five years to learn their trade and by the end of five years they would still be on 80 per cent of a full tradesman's wage. All professions had promotional steps that had to be earned over a period of 20 years.

Our children today are expecting living wage, a full wage, by the time they are 18. The statistics we were given indicate that we will not have enough young people in New Zealand to be trained in actual work skills. The skilled workers heading to Australia at the moment are often in the news as a major problem but this is nothing compared with our population imbalance developing now. Our concept of a living wage for an 18 year old and newcomers to the workforce expecting to flit from job to job comes from the baby boomer years and has nothing to do with a living society that is capable of growth.

The baby boomers now entering retirement in their sunset homes must now notice that there are very few young, low paid New Zealand workers looking after them. This imbalance is a model of what is happening to the whole of New Zealand. We are being hit by this double whammy of baby boom and baby bust now. I hope the next conference will address this whole issue, but then those attending were nearly all managers and their only suggestion was that there should be more think tanks. We need something a little more proactive than that.