No-go areas planned for jobless

New Zealand is planning to introduce no-go areas for the unemployed to help cut the number of benefit claimants.

Under the plan, benefits will be withdrawn if the unemployed live in areas where job prospects are low.

The move is primarily aimed at people who have moved to rural areas to lower their cost of living and are not actively seeking work because they live too far from the job market.

"If a person has said time and time again, 'I want a job here in this hamlet where I live with five other people and I want to be a brain surgeon,' then we're going to say no," the employment minister, Steve Maharey, told the Otago Daily Times.

The social development ministry is drafting a list of low-employment areas to get roughly a fifth of the country's 100,000 claimants off the dole and their £6m weekly benefits bill cut. If claimants are unable to travel to find work they would be forced to move. People moving to such areas also risk losing benefits altogether.

Sue Bradford, the Green party's parliamentary employment spokeswoman, said people were being driven out of New Zealand's cities by soaring living costs and could not afford to move back.

New Zealand has an unemployment rate of 4.9%. There are 100,000 people claiming benefits, significantly less than the 150,000 registered unemployed in February 2002.