.png)
5 hours ago
4
Thirty minutes north of New Zealand’s capital, raucous laughter is tumbling out of a nondescript building in Naenae – an economically deprived suburb in Lower Hutt – into the car park of a tiny shopping strip.
Inside, 10 students aged between 15 and 24 are trying to better their chances of finding a job, with help from Youth Inspire, a not-for-profit that assists hundreds of young people each year into training, education or work.
They have been working on CVs, learning to drive, and today are roleplaying challenging moments in a workplace. There is a lightness and camaraderie in the room that belies their day-to-day reality – one shaped by a desperate and lonely search for work that is not there.
“It’s really heartbreaking and it breaks my confidence,” says Luta Matagi, 23, who has spent seven months looking for work. “I may not have degrees but I am a hard worker. We are all hard workers in here.”
These students are a handful of the 180,000 young New Zealanders either unemployed or underemployed in the past quarter. Nearly four in 10 (37%) of 15-24-year-olds are in this group, categorised by government as the “underutilised” – the worst rate in 30 years, according to Stats NZ.
As New Zealand prepares for its general election in November, unemployment is a key issue. For voters aged 18-34, unemployment ranks as the second most pressing concern, behind the cost of living, according to a recent Ipsos poll.
Michael, 20, joined Youth Inspire to upskill, after finding “nothing out there” when it came to electrical apprenticeships. He is not alone. Apprenticeship numbers have slid 32% since 2022 to a 15-year low in 2025, government figures show.
Michael says he has applied for at least 40 entry-level jobs in the past two years. He has not had a single interview. “It’s isolating searching for jobs alone,” he says.
Matagi can’t count how many jobs she has applied for, “just to get rejected from all of them”.
Young people routinely bear the brunt of an economic downturn, says Shamubeel Eaqub, chief economist at Simplicity, which provides fund management for New Zealand’s national saving scheme. “When there are only a few vacancies, then the people in the front of the queue are the ones who have got the most experience and the most to offer.”
The effect can be scarring both for their career and their mental health, Eaqub says. “By the time the economy recovers, you’re going to be competing with the next cohort of young people who are now into the workforce.”
The government has promised to grow the economy to increase jobs for young people. At the same time it is toughening jobseeker benefit criteria for some of that cohort.
Matagi, like most of her peers, is on the jobseeker benefit. If she doesn’t find work soon, she will have to sell her car, which could further hinder her ability to get a job. She says the government is “so misguided” and not supporting young people enough. Its policy preventing 18-19 year olds whose parents earn a combined income of $65,529 (US$38,412) or more from accessing the benefit from November will place further strain on them and their families, she says.
“It’s so sad to say, but the future scares me.”
Zainab Ali, the organisation’s chief executive, sees the pressures on young people growing. “I used to notice pies and cans of [the drink] V being stolen from the shops near Youth Inspire, now what I am catching is bread, milk and eggs. They are the basics. That change tells you it is getting harder out there.”
About 500 people are on the Youth Inspire waitlist. Ali says the hundreds that have already been through their doors are incredibly motivated.
“They are struggling and still going,” she says. “And I would challenge anyone that thinks young people are lazy or not willing to work that we have the evidence to show that is not the case.”
‘Young people need to see some hope’
New Zealand’s economy has been battered by recession and stagnation that arrived in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Rising inflation piled pressure on businesses and drove households to rein in spending. Company liquidations rose 14% in the past year, and nearly 3,000 hospitality businesses ceased trading, credit bureau Centrix reported in September. There are, however, some flickers of improvement. Rating agency Moody’s said in September it expected 1.6% GDP growth in 2026.
Ali says entry-level jobs have disappeared, retail shops are not hiring and the availability of full-time work is slim. “We used to count full-time work as the benchmark – that’s not the case now. Casual is most prevalent, but generally it is fixed-term or short-term work.”
Labour’s spokesperson for finance and economy, Barbara Edmonds, says the national unemployment rate – currently at an 11-year high of 5.6% – is “a damning verdict” on incumbent prime minister Christopher Luxon’s economic management.
“Our young people need to see some hope … they want to see that there are jobs available for them.”
Edmonds says Labour would aim to turn around unemployment figures by backing trades and apprenticeships, guaranteeing graduate nurses a job, and introducing a “Future fund” – a policy to invest in innovative businesses and infrastructure to create jobs.
But the National party’s minister for social development and employment, Louise Upston, blames high unemployment on the previous Labour government’s “reckless fiscal and economic management”.
“It takes time to right the ship,” she says in a statement, adding her government is committed to growing the economy to boost job creation.
Responding to criticism over her policy to limit access to benefits for 18-19 year-olds, Upston says young people should be in education, training or employment and “it’s a common-sense expectation that it’s their parents who will support them, not the taxpayer”, if they cannot do one of these things.
As the mainstream parties vie for votes with promises of jobs and economic growth, young people may take more convincing. Recent polling shows support for Labour and National slipping away in favour of the minor parties, with younger women showing the highest support for left-leaning minor parties and younger men showing the highest support for minor rightwing and centrist parties.
Voter turnout for younger, and poorer, people has historically been low but Ali says she is noticing “a huge trend” in the community of families who have never voted and are enrolling for the election because of concern for their children. “That gives me heart,” she says.
Matagi and Michael say they will vote for the minor Green party. Matagi feels the party’s MPs “see our point of view”. Michael, meanwhile, believes “they look out for the underdog”.
The pair feel this election could be the difference between a career-less future and a path to a new life. “There is not much hope,” Michael says, “unless we get a new government.”
