New Zealand’s unemployment rate has risen to 4.2%, the highest rate in nearly five years, and the Bank of New Zealand is predicting it will be as high as 6% by the end of next year, a loss of 32,000 jobs. Property and finance, construction, retail and the tourism industry (served by 118,000 businesses) are likely to be the hardest hit, but the trend in the disappearance of manufacturing jobs is continuing.

Last Monday Aki Tuangalu, Tiaina Tavita and Nofo Wright worked their final shift at the Porirua based Kiwi Plastic Company, which makes plastic bags for supermarkets. The three night shift workers will get just $1000 redundancy pay, despite efforts from their union over the past six years to to lift them off the minimum wage and include a redundancy deal in the workers’ contracts, which would have seen them leave with about $11,000. Tuangalu told the Dominion Post:

I know that factory better than my wife, I think. I feel like I built this place. There’s no words to explain it. I’ve got a massive headache. You just feel unappreciated.

The economic downturn in the property market has also meant landlords are becoming more active in collecting rent arrears. Property Investors’ Federation vice president Andrew King told Radio New Zealand that in the economic downturn its likely that some tenants have lost jobs and are struggling to pay their rent.

Tenancy Tribunal applications have increased by 16% in recent months, with most of them relating to rent arrears, King believes that landlords are struggling with high interest rates, high costs, and limited cash flow, so they are more inclined to take tenants to the tribunal. At the same time the number of properties available to let has increased, by 13% in just the last three weeks, likely the result of people who have been unable to sell their houses now trying to rent them instead.