
Charting who and where is worst hit by labour market slump
Seasonally adjusted employment figures released by Stats NZ on Wednesday showed the national rate of unemployment ticked up 0.1 percentage points to 5.2 percent in the June 2025 quarter, marking an 11.1 percent rise in joblessness with 158,000 New Zealanders out of work. This is the highest rate since 2020 and in line with the Reserve Bank's expectations, but lower than the 5.3 percent widely forecast by economists.

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34 minutes ago
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Empowering Young Kiwis' Economic Potential
Minister for Youth More than 5,300 young Kiwis will benefit from new funding which invests in their business potential, develops enterprise skills, and better prepares them for their future work environment, Youth Minister James Meager has announced. Mr Meager confirmed the $1.5 million Ministry of Youth Development (MYD) funding for 11 community-based providers, while speaking at the INVOLVE youth sector conference in Christchurch. 'The Government is focused on growing our economy for all New Zealanders, including our young entrepreneurs and emerging business leaders. This investment will enable promising young Kiwis to access financial support to develop essential skills like financial and digital literacy, learn how to create a business, and provide seed funding and mentoring to those with ones ready to grow,' Mr Meager says. Three separate funds will support a range of programmes targeting different levels of youth enterprise experience, eligible for those between 12 and 24 years of age: The Introduction to Enterprise Fund ($475,000 total per annum) supports programmes focusing on essential skill-building, including financial literacy, digital, problem-solving, and communication skills. The Building Entrepreneurial Capital Fund ($725,000 total per annum) supports young people to acquire enterprise experiences and knowledge needed to create a business. The Developing Youth-Led Businesses Fund ($300,000 total per annum) supports seed funding and mentoring to young people who have businesses that are ready to grow. Among the 11 funding recipients is The King's Trust Aotearoa New Zealand. This will enable it to continue delivering its He Kākano programme, which has supported young entrepreneurs since 2022. The He Kākano Impact Report, released today, highlighted the success of the pilot programme, which is a collaboration with MYD. 'Youth Enterprise is a powerful tool, supporting young people to discover their interests, build new skills, and work towards their future aspirations. It helps young people see themselves not just as job seekers, but as job creators and change-makers in their own communities,' Mr Meager says. 'The He Kākano report highlights the value of investment in Youth Enterprise, and the talents of our young Kiwis, showing that 93% of the youth-led businesses supported through this programme are still trading after 24 months. 'An investment in our young people is an investment in New Zealand's future. This funding will ensure the next generation of Kiwis are supported in developing their business, entrepreneurial and workplace skills to grow our economy.' · A full breakdown of the funding recipients is attached here. · Further information on the MYD funding for Youth Enterprise providers can be found at:


Scoop
4 hours ago
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Hipkins Needs Ideas That Don't Make Kiwis Poorer
ACT Leader David Seymour is urging Chris Hipkins to bring serious ideas to today's Labour retreat – because so far, Labour's only policies would make New Zealanders worse off. 'Chris Hipkins, the recidivist country-destroyer, has retreated to his lair, presumably to stockpile fresh petrol for the economic fire he was stoking just 18 months ago,' says Seymour. 'He moans about the people leaving New Zealand, even while proposing to tax the ones who stay harder – and ban the industries that could bring Kiwis back – just as the economy is turning the corner. 'Yesterday, Treasury confirmed what ACT said at the time: Labour ignored clear advice not to 'stimulate' the post-COVID economy with reckless spending. Grant Robertson did it anyway, ramping up the spending machine, flooding the economy with cheap money that pushed up debt, then inflation, then interest rates, and now unemployment. 'It was economic vandalism on an historic scale. Now, as we hose down the smouldering ashes of Labour's inferno, Hipkins cries 'austerity' – like an arsonist returning to the scene of the crime, asking for the matches back. 'Labour is a party out of ideas – and the vacuum will be filled by the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. That circus would plunge us into third world conditions: higher debt, crippling taxes, more division, and fewer reasons to build a life in New Zealand.'


Otago Daily Times
7 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Hipkins labels Covid spending criticism 'Treasury spin'
By Craig McCulloch of RNZ Labour leader Chris Hipkins is dismissing what he calls "Treasury spin" after its analysts said the last government overspent during the Covid-19 pandemic against official advice. Treasury's 2025 Long Term Insights Briefing, released this week, calculated the total cost of the pandemic at about $66 billion, or roughly 20.4 percent of GDP. Previous govt spent too much during Covid: Treasury The report said Treasury advocated for more targeted support in late 2020 into 2021 and explicitly warned "against any further stimulus" by Budget 2022. But responding to questions from RNZ on Friday, Hipkins was unapologetic about his party's economic response to Covid-19. "We prioritised keeping people alive and keeping people in jobs," he said. "I'm never going to claim that we got everything perfect... but prioritising jobs and prioritising lives was the right thing to do." Hipkins claimed other countries also spent up large with the same objectives, but Treasury said New Zealand was near the top of the chart when considering spending as a percentage of GDP. "If you listen to the Treasury spin, then you're going to get one view," Hipkins told RNZ. "If you speak to other economists, you'll get a different view. "Our job was to support New Zealanders through the global pandemic, making sure that we saved lives and kept people's jobs, and we were very successful in doing that: one of the lowest death rates in the world, one of the lowest rates of unemployment in the world, and one of the fastest rates of economic growth in the world." About half of the total Covid-19 response cost was directly tied to the pandemic, such as the wage subsidy scheme, or health initiatives like vaccination, contact tracing and quarantine. The remainder went to a wide range of initiatives like: "tax changes, training schemes, housing construction, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, increases to welfare benefits, the Small Business Cashflow Scheme, Jobs for Nature, additional public housing places and school lunches". Treasury said that had "a lagged impact on the economy and proved difficult to unwind in later years". But Hipkins said Treasury had mischaracterised some of that spending, such as the provision of distance-learning for school students. "Making sure that kids could keep learning while they were at home during lockdown was an essential Covid-19 expense," Hipkins said. The report comes during a prolonged economic downturn, with both the government and opposition parties trading blame over its cause. Finance Minister Nicola Willis was quick on Thursday to wield Treasury's findings as evidence that Labour had been undisciplined in its spending, driving up inflation, and fuelling a cost-of-living crisis. "Treasury's language is spare and polite, but its conclusions are damning," she said. "New Zealanders are still paying the price of the previous government extending a big-spending approach initially intended for a pandemic response. "The lesson from Labour's mishandling of the Covid response is that while there are times when governments have to increase spending in response to major events the fiscal guardrails should be restored as soon as possible." To that, Hipkins scoffed: "By comparison to this government's track record, I'll take our one any day". Hipkins said Willis should stop blaming others and instead accept the consequences of her government's spending cuts. "The wreckage that she is leaving in her wake at the moment is obvious for all New Zealanders to see. Unemployment is going up," he said. "Economic growth has collapsed. Essential services that the public rely on a daily basis are falling into disarray, and this is all on Nicola Willis' watch."