134 staff gone from Reserve Bank since March

Wednesday, 29 October 2025

The Reserve Bank has lost 134 staff through redundancies, resignations and contracts coming to an end since former governor Adrian Orr formally left his role at the end of March, the bank has revealed.

Of the departures, 68 were as a result of redundancies.

In addition to the job cuts, the bank has halved the number of contractors working at the bank to 45.

Orr walked out of the bank earlier, at the end of February, after a breakdown in relations with the bank’s board over its response to proposed Budget cuts recommended by Treasury and requested by the Government.

Weeks later, the Government and the Reserve Bank announced the bank’s funding would be cut by about 25%.

The cuts left the bank with 554 employees as of mid-October, the bank stated in a raft of documents released today in an apparent show of transparency.

Including reductions in unfilled positions, a total of 154 employee roles were lost at the bank during the 6½ month period.

The bank said it had also cut its travel, training and consulting budgets.

Documents previously released under the Official Information Act in June made clear Orr did not believe the central bank could adequately fulfil its functions with the cuts to its budget agreed between bank’s board and Finance Minister Nicola Willis.

However, the bank appeared to take the cuts firmly on the chin in the commentary it provided today on the restructure, which it dubbed Project Denby, and which it forecast will save $11 million a year.

“The context in which the Reserve Bank operates has changed – we are in a fiscally constrained environment with a new five-year funding agreement,” in stated in an explanatory document.

“The Reserve Bank is still performing the same functions to deliver its mandate; however, we will deliver these functions more efficiently through the changes to our organisational structure and new ways of working.”

Wellington has been hit hardest by the budget cuts. Out of the total of 179 employees and contractors who left the bank, 143 had been based in the capital.

Orr has not commented publicly on the budget cuts or his departure since he abruptly quit the bank.

Earlier this month, a separate document released under the OIA showed he and the bank agreed not to bad mouth one another and that Orr had also agreed not to disparage the Treasury, Willis “or the Government generally” as part of his exit deal negotiated on March 5.

That deal saw him paid out his notice and confirmed he would receive a $416,000 “restraint of trade payment” negotiated as part of his original contract.

The bank’s new full-term governor, Swedish economist Anna Breman, is due to take up her position on December 1.