‘Incredibly tough’: Nearly 6000 jobs lost in capital over past year

Tuesday, 29 July 2025

Wellington has almost 6000 fewer people in work than one year ago, with reports emerging of former public servants facing mortgagee sales or making hundreds of job applications without luck.

The year-to-June Stats NZ figures show a 1.2% drop nationally in the number of jobs with 27,850 fewer people now in work. While the Auckland region has the highest total number of job losses, with 15,409, it is the Wellington region that had the highest percentage drop with its 5961 fewer jobs equating to a 2.3% decline.

Compared with two years ago, there has been a loss of 8672 jobs in Wellington. Nationally, the biggest drops were in construction followed by administrative and support services. Education and training rose by 2%.

Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul said she recently had a woman into her electorate office who had left a public service job and was now on the jobseeker benefit after applying for more than 400 jobs. She last week raised the case in Parliament.

“This has become the age-old story in Wellington: stories of people applying for hundreds and hundreds of jobs to continue to get declined applications.”

Real estate agent Craig Lowe, from Lowe & Co, had not seen a notable increase in mortgagee sales but said Wellington was “suffering” due to job losses, which was slow to rebound after a “few years of malaise”.

The Government-ordered public service cuts were to blame for young New Zealanders leaving for jobs overseas, Paul said.

That woman, Sue, who asked that her last name was not used, told The Post that she got four interviews from the more than 400 applications and, for most, she got no response. She had applied for jobs including at supermarkets, in hospitality and administration.

The process, with no end in sight, had been “incredibly tough”, she said.

Public Service Minister Judith Collins said the public service had a “period of adjustment after living beyond its means for a number of years”. Numbers rose 34% in the six years to 2023 then went higher still with 65,699 full-time equivalents when National came to power.

“We simply do not have sufficient taxpayers or economic growth to support that level of public spending,” Collins said.

Hutt South-based list MP Ginny Andersen, Labour’s jobs and incomes spokesperson, met two former public servants in the past month who were having to sell their homes via mortgagee sale after losing jobs more than a year ago and being unable to find new employment.

“With the cost of living sky-rocketing and a government that came in and hit pause on an important pipeline of construction work, things are looking grim for the Wellington region,” she said.

Public Service Association national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons laid the blame for a “wounded” city with the Government’s public service cuts.

'This Government treats the public sector and Wellington with disdain and the impact of these job losses will be felt for generations to come,“ she said.

Behind the figures were real people with lives and families, she said.

Wellington mayor Tory Whanau said the “relentless” public service cuts had cascading impacts on retail, hospitality, and real estate.

“I would say that this government, particularly the MPs who live in and represent Wellington, have a lot to answer for,” she said.

“Many people I know who work for current ministers find it utterly disempowering and are miserable, but are forced to remain in their roles due to the scarcity of available jobs.”