Saving lives and working two jobs to survive: Meet the emergency services workers trying to stay afloat
Friday, 10 April 2026
As fuel prices rise and food costs soar, some of New Zealand’s frontline emergency workers are taking on second jobs to stay afloat, juggling life-saving work with mounting financial pressure at home. Katie Ham reports.
Jack* can’t remember the last time he had a full day off. When one shift ends, another begins.
The 26-year-old Auckland firefighter has only been on the job for six months. Already, his days blur between long shifts at the firehouse and hours spent at his second job, picking up whatever work he can get.
After a rotation of two 10-hour day shifts and two 14-hour nights responding to emergencies, Jack swaps his firefighting gear for another physically demanding job: shrink wrapping buildings.
And the reason is simple – he can’t afford not to.
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With an annual salary of about $60,000 before tax, Jack is the sole provider for his household, supporting his father in his 70s and his 15-year-old nephew.
Without the second job, life would come down to impossible choices.
“Either I work two jobs, or I’d be picking and choosing whether to pay the electricity bill or put food on the table.”
Although he’d rather pick up overtime firefighting shifts, those are “scarce” with only one or two available a week, he says.
And where he might get paid between $400-$500 for picking up an overtime shift, shrink wrapping can bring in closer to $800 a week.
“Physically, they’re both tough jobs, and you’ve definitely got to be on your A-game with firefighting. There’s no mucking about.
“But for the stability of my family, I’d pretty much do anything. If it means putting in the hard yards now, then I'll do that.”
The long-term toll of working two jobs is something he’s wary of though: “I know sooner or later it’s going to catch up with me. I know I can’t burn myself out too early.”
Jack took almost a 50% pay cut to become a firefighter, leaving behind full-time shrink wrapping. Even so, he doesn’t regret the move.
“I love the job. I love coming to work. The camaraderie is like nothing I’ve experienced in any other workforce. I love helping people out where we can, and showing up on their toughest days.
“No one ever does this job for the money. They do it because they want to be part of something bigger. But at the same time, we still have families to take care of.”
It’s that sense of purpose that keeps him going, even as the workload stacks up.
But there are moments that make the trade-offs harder to ignore.
At a recent fire at a petrol station in Ponsonby, Jack was on the first arriving truck at the scene but a malfunction meant water wasn’t flowing through, leaving the crew exposed while they waited for back-up.
“It was probably the first time I was actually scared for my life. There were explosions coming from within the fire. I thought to myself afterwards, like man, I knew this job was going to have its risks, but you expect the equipment to work at a bare minimum.”
But working two jobs comes with its own much steeper cost.
“I barely see my family any more, and when I do it’s usually when I get home after a long day, and then I just need to have a bite and get some rest.
“My old man is getting old, and I want to be around him and be there for him as much as possible. My nephew is at an age where he needs me too.”
It’s an irony not lost on him: the more he works to support his family, the less time he spends with them.
“But if it’s between spending time with them, and having to work two jobs or providing them with what they need, it’s not really a choice for me.”
The cost of keeping communities safe
While it’s fairly easy to find stories of firefighters juggling second jobs thanks to their four-days-on, four-days-off shifts, the same isn’t true for police officers.
Without the same regular downtime, officers often struggle to fit extra work into an already unpredictable schedule.
For Ben*, a police officer based in the South Island, making time for a second job is no mean feat, often leaving him working late into the night.
With three years under his belt in the force, Ben supplements his policing income by renting out a camper van and maintaining two holiday homes for the owners.
After moving from Christchurch, where he earned $100,000 as a sales rep and paid $150 a week in rent, Ben quickly realised his new $2100 bi-weekly take-home pay wasn’t enough to cover $450 a week in rent and other expenses in one of New Zealand’s priciest regions.
“When I moved here, my rent quadrupled and my wages nearly halved overnight. Those first 12 months were really hard. I was struggling a lot financially. I paid the rent, groceries and petrol, and there was bugger all left over.”
Long gone were the organic vegetables he used to buy. Now, he buys in bulk and meal-prepped for the week, cutting costs wherever possible.
“I really struggled to get home to Christchurch to see my family too. When I did see them, Mum would give me cash. She’d slip me 100 bucks for petrol. Stuff like that never used to happen before.”
Faced with mounting financial pressure, Ben abandoned the dream of buying a house and instead invested in a camper van to rent to holidaymakers, topping up his income by around $150 to $200 a week.
“It’s not making me rich,” he says. “But it helps.”
Even so, the squeeze has been enough to make him question his choices: “I do think about my old job, and what I might be earning by now.”
But like many in the job, walking away isn’t simple because policing was never just about money.
“Once you’re in, you sort of don’t know what else you’d do. It sounds so cliché to say that I joined to help people, but I did.”
Still, home ownership feels increasingly out of reach, and the life he imagined for himself has been pushed further away.
“That was the goal. A house, a family … I thought I might be there by now but I can’t see it happening any time too soon.”
Where some officers like Ben work two jobs to make ends meet, others like Ethan* take on extra work, at least in part, for their mental health.
Ethan has spent his entire 25-year police career in Auckland, working across a range of roles including Search and Rescue, intelligence, and post-earthquake deployments in Christchurch.
Now a sergeant, he has spent much of his time in intelligence work, after choosing to step down from leadership positions in 2020.
In 2017, he started a small digger business, buying a second-hand digger, trailer, and 4x4.
“I always thought I could do something more with all the spare time I had, whether it was due to roster or our leave entitlements … I like working outside and getting my hands dirty,” he says.
These days, Ethan takes jobs as they come and fits them around his policing roster: “If I’m not able to complete jobs on my days off, I take leave and get them done.”
His projects are often small, practical jobs that other contractors might avoid, and many are for fellow police staff tackling DIY projects.
Balancing two careers has rarely been an issue for Ethan either.
“There have been times where I’ve had to rush to get to work after being on the digger before a late shift.
“But I’m the type of person that is always at work in plenty of time. On time is late in my book, so I can confidently say that I’ve never been late for work due to my little business.”
Though the business has never been a major moneymaker, Ethan reinvests heavily in it – buying new machinery, tools, and equipment year on year.
“Early on in my career in particular, I found that I struggled [financially]. I had child support payments and felt like I couldn’t get ahead.”
But after two overseas deployments, Ethan was able to buy a house in Auckland, which was a “real turning point” for his family.
Changing landscape drives increase in side jobs, unions say
Both the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) and the Police Association say financial pressures are driving more workers to find extra income, despite already demanding primary roles.
Secretary of the NZPFU Wattie Watson says that while secondary work has long been an option for career firefighters, the context is shifting.
“Traditionally, firefighters have been trained and qualified in a trade before they joined. Over the years, Fenz has changed the way it recruits, so fewer are coming from trade backgrounds.”
A senior firefighter with up to nine years’ experience earns, for example, just over $80,000 for a 42-hour week, Watson says.
Where once firefighters could fall back on their trades to supplement their income, reliance on overtime shifts has increased.
“Career firefighters should be paid like the professionals that they are. It’s appalling that other jobs like Fenz management get $40,000 more a year than senior firefighters,” Watson says.
(Earlier this month, The Post revealed the Fenz board members would be getting pay rises of up to 79% amid prolonged industrial action.)
“Career firefighters are highly trained professionals, responsible for the safety of their colleagues and the public. They need to maintain training and competencies, and are multi-skilled in a highly complex job,” Watson says.
“If you were in it for the money, you wouldn’t be in the job. It’s hard to worry about going to work while also worrying how you’re going to pay rent and feed your kids.”
Similarly, president of the Police Association Steve Watt says that working two jobs has become a “necessity” for some officers.
“With the continuing and long-lasting economic and financial crisis we’re in, I’d say it’s becoming increasingly popular for officers to work two jobs just to make ends meet.
“While I suspect there are occasions where officers aren’t always following the clear processes in place for applying for and having secondary employment approved, I’d always recommend they do so.”
Tight policies for secondary employment
Both Police and Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) say they have formal policies around secondary employment and acknowledge the pressures that lead some staff to take on extra work.
According to chief people officer at NZ Police, Leigh MacDonald, the organisation has a mature, well-established policy regarding secondary employment.
Officers are allowed to enter into secondary employment – either through another employer or on a self-employed basis – while also meeting their obligations to manage conflicts of interest, health and safety, uphold police values, and comply with the Code of Conduct.
“Employees are accountable for maintaining their well-being and safety, and secondary employment must not create health, fatigue, or safety risks to themselves or others,” MacDonald says.
In opposition to Watt’s observation about an uptake in officers taking on second jobs, MacDonald provided The Post with police-held data showing that secondary employment requests had risen only slightly over the past five years, with a peak of 495 officers working approved secondary jobs in 2024 (approximately 3% of the total work force).
In the year to date, there have been 157 approved secondary employment requests, the data showed.
Meanwhile, Fenz deputy chief executive of people, Janine Hearn, says paid firefighters may choose to work a second job “for all sorts of reasons”.
Like with police officers, firefighters are required to declare secondary employment when it could impact their ability to perform their role, including potential conflicts with duties or health and safety risks such as fatigue.
Hearn added that all employees, volunteers, and their whānau have access to free wellbeing support, including financial wellbeing services.
“We recognise how tight current economic conditions are for our people and we value the incredible work they do keeping our communities safe,” she says.
Over the past decade, average senior firefighter pay has increased by 37%, Hearn says, which is more than 10% above the increase for all workers.
Fenz is currently negotiating a new collective agreement, which would lift average senior firefighter salaries from a range of approximately $81,000–$87,000 to $86,000–$93,000, excluding allowances and overtime.
Overtime can add an average of almost $39,000 annually, Hearn says, although this varies by individual and “some will earn more, some will earn less”.
* The Post has given all of the emergency service workers spoken to for this story pseudonyms to protect their primary employment.