Unemployment

"Surprise" unemployment high masks more damaging developments

Unemployment hits 5.4% in the December quarter, but that doesn't include the 140,000 plus Kiwi citizens that have fled in the last 2 years

Economists and the RBNZ had forecast an unemployment rate of 5.3% in the December quarter, but more people returning to the workforce meant it came in higher - “highest level in a decade”.

reports:

It’s grim and as Miller points out, these impacts are generational.

But the truth is even more grim - the unemployment rate is made significantly higher because it masks the 140,000 + Kiwi citizens we’ve lost in the last two years.

In 2023, ACT created this ad, saying that if Kiwis voted for them, they would turn things around:

But with a record 70,000 Kiwis moving per year since they formed government, with a majority of working age and never returning again, it’s easy to understand why ACT deleted their ad.

Record unemployment
Record Kiwis leaving and brain drain with extremely damaging generational impacts
Record business failures
Record infrastructure deficit and under investment
Record undermining and deliberate starving of the public health system
#Backontrack

Last year when I reported on business liquidations, it was sitting at the highest in 10 years.

This week saw business liquidations recorded at the highest level for 15 years. i.e. the trajectory and pace of regression is significant here.

The businesses that have closed in the last two years, include, but are not limited to:

The Body Shop (April 2025), EB Games (scheduled closure early 2026), Miniso and Yoyoso (liquidated 2026), Smith & Caughey's, Huckleberry (2024), DFS (Auckland, 2025), SPQR, Homeland (Auckland), Sealords factory (Nelson), Eves Valley Sawmill (Nelson), Proper Crisps (reduction), Kitchen Things (2025), Smith City, Fortune Favours (Wellington) and on it went.

We’ve lost significant factories along significant job losses. These include, but aren’t limited to:

Carter Holt Harvey Plywood Plant, Tokoroa, 119 jobs lost,
Eves Valley Sawmill, Tasman: 142 jobs lost,
Kinleith Mill, 150 job lost,
Ravensdown Fertiliser Plant Dunedin, this 100 year old factory saw 30 jobs lost,
Alliance Group Smithfield Meatworks, Timaru, this 138 year old plant saw 600 job losses.
Winstone Pulp International, Ruapehu - 230 jobs lost
Oji Fibre Solutions Paper Recycling Mill, Auckland: 72 jobs lost

And not to mention the 18,000 construction jobs gone which construction bosses put squarely at National and Chris Bishop’s feet.

And on it all goes.

Meanwhile, National can do nothing more than fearmonger and present misleading “advertisements”.

One comment noted:

It was at about 4.7% inflation when National won the election in 2023. So its fair to say inflation was already decreasing before they took over. In the past 12 months its increased again by 0.9% from 2.2 to 3.1. If this current trend continues we will see interest rates rising again to compensate.

And it is true.

The trendline was always forecast to come down in this manner, post Covid, but National are too eager to take credit for economic outcomes completely unrelated to their actions, but also refuse to acknowledge and take action in areas they directly contributed to.

Back on track, the National Party told us.